


Stay

by Archenic



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Death, Drama, F/M, Gen, Gore, Horror, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4062097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archenic/pseuds/Archenic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stranger couldn't have been any older than she was, his hand trembling so fervently she could have mistaken it for her own. It had been the second time someone had pointed a gun at her today, she didn't want to go through this, not again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Writing an Arvo/OC fic is basically like inviting the fandom to figuratively stomp me in the face repeatedly, but I couldn't help myself. I was disappointed with how Arvo turned out to be a mindless plot device in canon when it seemed like the writers would do more with the character, and I've always wanted to write some OCs for TWDG universe; so this fic is what happens when I try to kill two birds with one stone. Also, I don't speak Russian, so I had to use Google translate...I apologize in advance for that. (This story can also be found at Fanfiction.net, you'll find this same exact note there.)

_Prove to me, I'm not gonna die alone..._

* * *

She was here, but she was the only one.

Her shoulder was bleeding again, the rift in her maroon sweater where the bullet had ripped through exposed the gash on her shoulder. Rowan couldn't bring herself to look at the wound in its entirety, sleeve rolled up only to her elbow serving as a testament to how far she'd gotten. However, the pain remained, constantly reminding her that nobody was there to help her, at least not anymore.

But that didn't stop her from wandering the ruins of the memorial as if her cousin would somehow appear out of thin air.  _It was Gale's idea to go to Parker's Run. Those men had probably captured him and took him back to that hardware store._  It was a reasonable explanation, yet the nagging feeling that her cousin had just abandoned her like he kept saying he should have wouldn't let up. It had to have been a year since Fort Monroe fell, eventually Gale would make good on his promise, like he always did.

Rowan hid her face in her hands, long hair a dark shroud further obscuring her face, but nothing could hide her from the fact that she was on her own. The people she had traveled with over the past year were all dead now. Maybe her cousin wasn't dead, but he was gone all the same.

When she finally lifted her head and parted the curtain of hair, the first thing she looked to were the maps scattered across the walls advertising an observation deck.  _Better not knowing what to do in a safe place than not knowing what to do out here._ It wasn't the best plan, but it was all she had.

* * *

The staircase leading up to the deck was blocked with a body, but bodies were common. What wasn't common, the roll of bandages and bottle of pills on the ground next to it, was what caught her eye. She picked them up and the capsules clattered against the walls of their container as if they were screaming at her to put them down, because nobody would leave supplies lying around like this. This stuff belonged to someone, and whoever it was left it here, leaving her with no excuse not to tend to her injury, even though the thought of staring at her shoulder for too long made her nauseous.

Rowan ascended the stairs deliberately slowly, pistol in one hand and medicine in the other, nudging the gate open further with her foot. As it screeched in protest, someone darted out from the room next to the gift shop, gun pointed directly at her.

The stranger couldn't have been any older than she was, his hand trembling so fervently she could have mistaken it for her own. It had been the second time someone had pointed a gun at her today, she didn't want to go through this, not again. The expression on her face must have conveyed as much to the boy, and he began to slowly lower his weapon, seemingly under the impression she'd do the same, and like a reflection she did not disappoint, following his lead until both of their weapons were tucked away.

"...Hello." He was the first to break the silence that followed, with a voice much deeper than she expected from such a scrawny guy.

Rowan attempted a smile, but felt too drained to be genuinely friendly and could only lift her lips into a partial grin, trying to come off as nonthreatening so she wouldn't startle him again. "Hi."

Another beat of silence passed as they observed one another, until his gaze flicked to her hand and he pointed at the medicine. "Where did you get that?"

"I found it on the ground."  _He must have been the one who dropped it!_ __  
  
The boy began to plead immediately, "That's mine, it's for my  _sestra,_  she needs it!"

He took a step towards her and instinctively she drew back, grip tightening on the medicine. "I need it too, I got shot."

He frowned at her but didn't move any closer, and she made herself look as pitiful as possible, biting her lip and gazing at him with wide, tired eyes. "Please."

The boy cursed, presumably in Russian, and began to limp across the deck, the brace around his leg squeaking with each step he took. "Wait."

Curious as to what he was doing, she ignored his request and followed him around the corner just in time to see him shove his arm deep into a trashcan and pull out a brown bottle.  _He's stashing supplies in there._ Rowan didn't ask why, not wanting to piss off the only person who might be willing to help her.

Upon noticing her standing there, the stranger stood with the bottle in his hand. "Give me my things, then you can use this."

 _Disinfectant._  He was offering a trade she'd be stupid to refuse, what she really needed was an antiseptic and he knew it. It was an easy decision. Rowan handed him the medicine and took the disinfectant, but did not move. The boy was staring at her expectantly and she turned away from him.

With her head titled down, long hair shielding her from whatever look of contempt she believed he had for her, she told him, "I don't know how to do it." To admit that she was scared to a complete stranger shouldn't have been as cathartic as it was in that moment.

It seemed like an eternity before he finally replied softly, "It's okay. I can help you, come."

Rowan followed him to the stairs and sat down, relieved that he actually offered to do it for her, but also surprised at his hospitality. The boy began tugging her sleeve up as if he were ripping off a band-aid, but this pain was worse. Or so she assumed, after all, she had always soaked band-aids.

"This is not so bad," he commented. "I thought I would have to take bullet out of you, it is just a cut."

"You've taken bullets out of people before?"

"Um...no." He grinned sheepishly. "Cannot be too hard though."

Rowan knew the antiseptic would sting, but she couldn't avoid crying out as he dabbed at her skin. Her curiosity sprung up at his claims of it not being serious, and now pardoned from actually having to fix the wound herself, she was feeling brave.  _Don't be a wimp._  The laceration wasn't as large as she thought it would be, and she held her gaze until a rivulet of fresh blood began to trickle down her arm, then she had to look away.  _Five seconds is an improvement, at least._

"I am Arvo." He introduced himself as he began to wrap gauze around her arm despite her fidgeting.

"Rowan."

Arvo finished with the bandages and got to his feet. "Okay  _Ryabina_ , is all good."

" _Ryabina?"_ She questioned, giving him another confused half-smile.

"You are named after  _Ryabina_ tree, yes?" Arvo asked her, holding his hand out to help her up.

"...I guess? Thanks for helping me."

Rowan glanced outside at the snowflakes that were just beginning to fall. It wasn't exactly warm in here, but it was the only shelter she had. Until her cousin came back, this would have to be home. And if he didn't come back, she wasn't sure, but she'd have plenty of time to think about it.

She slid down into a sitting position against the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her backpack was situated next to her and she leaned into it as if it were another person and closed her eyes. All day she had done nothing but blindly run through the woods hoping to reach a place that was somewhat secure based only off the hope that a familiar face would be there, and now all she wanted was curl up and recover from that disappointment.

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, Arvo was sitting next to her. Rowan didn't know how long she was out for, but she was relieved that he hadn't left yet, it had been so long since she'd met someone new who didn't have any ill intent, especially when that someone was her own age.

"You're still here?" Not the best way to start a conversation, but it was something.

"Yes. Do you not want me to be?" He teased, grinning.

"No! I don't like being alone." She admitted, brushing her hair back behind her ear.

"Where are your people?  _Daleko otsyuda?"_ __  
  
"I don't know. The people who shot me took my cousin. They might be after me, hell, I don't know." She repeated, unable to mention that just maybe, the people she met could have killed him.

"You should get out of here," He muttered. "There's no good in this place."

"I've got nowhere else to go."

" _Tozhe samoye."_ Arvo responded glumly as he began to pick at his fingernail.

"Who are you with? Besides your sister?"

"I live with her and some friends." The way he said 'friends' made it seem like they were anything but. "I have to get back to them. I have long walk."

"Teach me Russian." She started, trying to change the subject to get him to stay longer.

He laughed at her request. "I don't have time."

Rowan ignored him, asking the translation of the first word that came to mind. "What's snow in Russian?"

" _Sneg."_ __  
  
"Okay...that's a funny word. What does-"

"Shh! My turn." Arvo interrupted, touching the silver shark charm on her bracelet. "What is this  _ryba_ called?"

"It's a shark. I got it at the beach a few years ago."

"I have never been there."

"I used to go a lot where I lived...before this stuff happened. Whenever I'd go swimming I'd always stay by other people because I thought if the sharks came they'd bite them instead of me."

He laughed again. "That is smart."

They continued to take turns pointing at whatever objects they could find and asking for translations until she began to nod off, her long walk from earlier finally catching up to her.

* * *

The girl had fallen asleep and made a pillow out of his shoulder, her face nestled into his neck. He wouldn't deny that it was relaxing to spend time with someone who was nice, but the longer he stayed the more time he wasted. Arvo didn't want to walk all the way back to the house, and yet he also didn't want to worry Natasha anymore than he probably already had. She could be in pain, and even though he couldn't really do anything for her besides fetch pills and water, he still had to be there soon.

Arvo reached over her and took her backpack to use as a replacement pillow, figuring it would an upgrade from his bony shoulder.

Once she was situated, he went to the trashcan. He had to bring back some of the stuff he'd scavenged, Buricko would get suspicious if he came back with nothing. It was only the first day that he had put his plan in action and it already felt like he was taking two steps back for every step forward. Arvo pocketed the antiseptic and a few more pill bottles.  _This isn't enough._ __  
  
Reluctantly he turned back to Rowan, still sleeping soundly, and before his conscience could ward him off he had already pinched the zipper of her backpack and pulled it open. If Vitali was here he'd probably tell him to stop wasting time, slit her throat while she was vulnerable and steal all her stuff, and he'd snicker nervously while wringing his hands, unsure if the man was joking or not.

Just thinking about it made Arvo sick, sick because he knew that even though it was unlikely Vitali would suggest something  _that_  absurd, he'd would probably go along with it out of fear of what would happen if he were to refuse.

He settled on taking just one can of food from her.  _I helped her so she will help me, even if she doesn't know it._

" _Stay safe, Ryabina."_ It felt wrong to leave her up here with nobody to watch as she slept, to just wish her well and be on his way, but Natasha was waiting for him. He couldn't stick around with a girl he had just met, but he made sure to close the gate to the deck as he left, figuring it was the least he could do.

* * *

**It isn't exactly quality writing, but I tried. Oh, and quick note, when in Arvo's POV when he starts speaking Russian it is italicized.**


	2. Chapter 2

There was no way a group of survivors large enough to defend a trailer park would have let a wound as big as the one in the fence go untreated. As Arvo slipped through the gash in the mesh and saw the state of the insides, it confirmed his suspicions that this place had fallen. The carcass of a community that was once thriving had to have plenty of supplies, the only thing left to fear here was the dead.

He turned the doorknob of the closest trailer, relieved that it opened with no problem. Surely he wouldn't have to venture too far to scrounge up a couple of things.

Glass crunched under his shoe as he moved towards the kitchen, gripping his screwdriver. Arvo didn't consider it a real weapon, but Buricko wouldn't give him a knife so he had learned to make use of what he had. The constant creak of his leg brace annoyed him at even the best of times, but now, when it was the only thing cutting through the eerie silence; it was an unbearable cacophony. With each step he took it felt like he was attracting walkers, but none had appeared.

For now, at least.

Arvo pulled open the cupboards and squinted at the shelves through his cracked lens, resisting the urge to take off his glasses and clean them as if he could just wipe away the fracture.  _I'm never going to get used to this._  He wished he hadn't come back so late the day he had met that girl, but Vitali would have found any reason to pick on him. Now he had to live with broken glasses for the rest of his life, however long it may last.

There was only one can of food on the shelf, which rendered his earlier assumption about this trip being easy as invalid. It was foolish to think that the kitchen would be fully stocked, but he didn't expect it to be this empty.

He was just about to head down the hallway when he heard the door open, sending him scrambling back into the kitchen and behind the counter, praying that those monsters hadn't learned to open doors. From his position he couldn't see who or what had entered the trailer, but from the sound of it, they didn't drag their feet like the dead did. Speaking would give away where he was, moving would make noise, but he had to do something.

Gun in one hand and screwdriver in the other, he rose to his feet to find the girl he had met days earlier facing him, the kitchen counter the only thing separating them. It took him a moment to realize it was her, she looked different with her hair up and out of her face. Arvo had left her while she slept, but he could tell from her pallid complexion and the dark circles under her eyes that she hadn't gotten much sleep since then.

Rowan seemed as surprised to see him as he felt, but she was the first to get over her shock. " _Privyet,_ Arvo."

" _How is your arm_? _"_ He smirked, knowing full well she wouldn't understand what he was saying.

She stuck her tongue out in response. "Translate."

"I said, how is your arm?"

"Okay, I guess. Thanks again."

"You have not looked at it, have you?" He teased lightly, raising his eyebrow in amusement.

She stared at the floor, face flushed. "No. But it doesn't hurt anymore, so it must be getting better."

"Good. Are you looking for food too?"

"Yeah. I don't have anything left. You could have just asked instead of stealing from me, you know."

Arvo shoved his hands in his pockets, she didn't sound genuinely angry but he still attempted to defend his actions; rather weakly at that. "You were asleep, I did not want to wake you. We can search together, here." He took the can out of his bag and held it out to her as a peace offering, she accepted it and transferred it to her own backpack.

"We can be friends, yes...?" He asked tentatively. The last time he could recall establishing official friendships was when he was a little kid without a brace on his leg or a care in the world, running amok at the playground under the watchful eyes of his mother or Natasha. Now companionship came with a contract.  _Maybe we should shake hands on it._

"Okay. Friends."

She smiled at him in full this time instead of only half-way, erasing any of his doubt.

* * *

Rowan was adept at taking down walkers, and she did it in such a nonchalant manner that he wasn't sure if he was envious or admired her for it. Even though he was able to kill too, he was never that confident in his abilities.

She had just finished pushing a walker up against the wall and jabbed her blade into its skull when he asked, "How are you not scared of those things?"

"People die when I'm scared, I can't be anymore. Not of them, anyway."

She had already nudged the fallen corpse out of the way and walked through the door before he could respond.

The interior of all the trailers they had inspected thus far were practically identical; the skylight illuminating the room and the various bloodstains being the only distinguishing features this one had. Arvo turned the corner into the kitchen to find Rowan sliding an empty container back and forth on the counter-top.

"Find anything?" She asked.

"Nope." He admitted glumly. "But there are other places to go-"

Rowan grabbed his arm and jerked him to the ground mid-sentence as the container rolled off the counter and clattered to the floor. That was when he saw the walker turn its head. Its lower jawbone was crooked and looked as if it were about to fall off, but it still managed to snap at the air with fervor while it stared through the kitchen window with fog white eyes, searching for the sound of the noise.

Neither dared to speak, it was only one, but if it saw them and started banging on the walls, others would notice.

The sound of gunfire in the distance caught its attention and it turned and began to totter away. Arvo released the breath he was holding, but that brief feeling of relief was quickly substituted with a new worry.

"Who is out there?"  _And who would be stupid enough to start firing in a place like this?_

Rowan drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them and did not move, as if she were frozen to the floor.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"The people who took my cousin, that's them."

Arvo frowned. _There is no way to tell._  "I will shoot them if they come after you." He tried to sound brave, but he had never shot at anyone living before, let alone actually killed someone. "We have to go. Come." Still kneeling, he latched onto her arms and pulled her up with him. The sound of gunshots was going to draw walkers, and he wanted to get as far away from this place as possible.

Rowan went straight to the window, somewhat reawakened now that she was on her feet. She flipped open one of the blinds with her hand, and whatever she saw caused her to back away from the window with a small gasp. "Don't open the door."

"Are people outside?"

"No, but the geeks are. I think some of them saw me."

"How many...?"

"I don't know! We can't go out the door." She pointed towards the skylight. "We have to go up."

"Are you  _crazy?_ I can't! We should wait-"

Rowan was already pushing on the kitchen table to no avail. "They'll find me if we stay. Help me!"

"Why, so you can  _escape?"_ He glared accusingly at her.

"I'll help you too! Come on, please!"

A loud pounding on the door started up and they turned their heads towards the sound. It wouldn't take long for all of those things to catch on to what the one slamming on the door was doing. They would break in soon.

Arvo had no other choice now, so he helped her push the table over the skylight. Rowan lept atop the desk and undid the latch, pushing the window open. The banging on the door grew stronger and Arvo climbed up the table immediately, egged on by his fear.

She netted her fingers together. "You go first." He put his good foot into her hand and clutched her shoulder to steady himself, trying not to put too much weight on his injured leg. When she hoisted him up he grabbed the ledge and was able to pull himself up, slowly but surely.

Arvo held his hand out for her and helped her to the roof, then surveyed the ground below them. Walkers were everywhere, the quiet when he had first slipped through the fence was replaced with snarling and growling. Dread was setting in, and when he stared back down through the skylight and saw that the dead had broke into the trailer and were filling into it he began to shake. He couldn't go back inside, or anywhere else. There was nowhere to go.

Rowan kicked the skylight shut with her foot. "Don't look down there, okay?"

"You are not helping!  _What the hell are we going to do now?"_ He yelled at her in his own language, even though she would not understand him.

She wasn't even paying attention to him, instead staring at the mobile home next to the one they were standing on, the one touching the fence. It was the way out.

"Arvo, can you jump?"

" _What?_ No." What she was suggesting dawned upon him. The gap between the two trailers was small enough to leap across. For someone without a bum leg, that is. "No." He repeated. "No no no, you cannot leave me." Arvo latched onto her arm ferociously, reminiscent of the day he had thrown a fit when Natasha had left for school and he was too young to come along. "You are not going anywhere without me. I'm going to die." He choked out, panic crushing his lungs.

"Let go!" She jerked her arm out of his grasp so violently that she almost slipped off the roof.

Once she steadied herself she gripped his shoulders firmly. "I am not going to let you die, I can get you across."

"How?"

"Trust me. I won't abandon you. I have a plan."

She dashed to the edge of the trailer and jumped on the hood of the other one before he could even ask what that plan was.

The wave of dead turned and crashed against the vehicle, trying to claw their way up to her. Arvo stood there staring at the space between them, waiting for her to hop over the railing and desert him. He clenched his fists together, fury fueled by his hysteria.  _I have to die here, and she gets to live._

But Rowan was not heading towards the fence, and instead took the wooden plank leaning up against the vehicle and pulled it up before the dead could turn the corner and tear it from her.

" _What are you doing!?"_ Arvo called out to her. She brought it to the edge of the trailer and leaned it across the opening; building him a bridge over the sea of walkers.

Which he would now have to cross.

He glanced down at the the mangled, bloody hands and tried to imagine that they were there to catch him if he were to fall instead of tear him limb from limb. It didn't work. "Please do something else." He begged, knowing full well that she had done the only thing she could for him.

"I told you not to look down!"

When he tore his eyes away from the monsters below, Rowan was still waiting for him. She hadn't run away; if he was in her position, he probably would have. It was either die here slowly, or take a chance.

_Good leg first._  Arvo placed one foot on the board and it creaked out a warning to turn back, triggering tremors in his leg. The frenzy below intensified once they noticed him creeping across the plank, ecstatic at the prospect of him losing his balance and toppling over.

"Don't look at them, look at me, see you're almost here." He shuffled across the board until he was in range of her outstretched hand and then locked his fingers with her own and leaned into her as she pulled him to the roof. It felt good to stand on a sturdier surface, and the roar of the walkers felt distant now that he had reached salvation.

Arvo wrapped his arms around Rowan and held her to him tightly; and she gasped while he was busy whispering his gratitude into her shoulder.  _You didn't leave._ The rage he had felt towards her moments ago had expired, now replaced with an intense adoration. She pressed her forehead into his shoulder in an attempt to reciprocate his affection despite the fact that the suddenness of his actions had startled her.

* * *

Arvo felt absolutely giddy, even though his feet hurt like hell and it had begun to rain. Icy cold droplets were nipping at his skin, but his infallible mood was fueled with each step he took. He was breathing, walking, and feeling, and he marveled at every second of it. Right now, to just be alive was good enough for him, no matter what condition the world was in.

Rowan was walking on the trail at a brisk pace, holding her pistol so tightly it appeared as if it were glued to her hand, Arvo increased his speed to catch up with her. " _Wait!"_

She came to a stop and turned around to face him. "I need to get back to the deck. I can't let them find me."

"They are probably dead by now, no rush. I have to take this back." He lifted up his bag as she began to fidget.

"Why don't you just take it back to your group?"

He had a feeling she would ask him that eventually, and he was kind of glad she did. Half because she had proven herself to be trustworthy and the other half because there was literally nobody else he could tell; and what better time to start opening up than when his adrenaline rush was beginning to wind down. "We have to leave, it isn't safe."

Rowan's gaze softened. "Are your friends bad to you or something?"

"No!" That response was too generous, so he quickly added, "Only sometimes..." It surprised him how swiftly he came to their defense considering all the times they had mocked him and pushed him around, but he did not  _hate_ them.

"Did one of them break your glasses?"

He stared at his feet. "I fought with Vitali, yes. I did not win."

"I didn't think so."

Rowan started walking again, this time at a more leisurely pace and he walked beside her.

His eyes narrowed indignantly at her comment. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. It's okay, I didn't win any fights with people either."

"You have fought with people?" He asked, somewhat intrigued. Rowan did not seem like the type of person who fancied fighting with the living.

"Not those kind of fights."

"Then what kind?" He asked.

"You know, arguments and stuff. When I was with my group it was all anybody ever did."

"I never win arguments either, because nobody listens to me."

Rowan, who had been driven by fright earlier, was now slowing down. She so weary that her feet scraped against the ground, the only constant sound among the occasional gust of wind or rustle in the bushes. Arvo kept her upright, helping her walk.

"I think he's gone." She admitted to him quietly, and Arvo knew whom she was talking about.

"You should come with me and Natasha then."

"Where are you going?" His offer seemed to shock her out of her haze, and she was now blinking up at him with sleepy green eyes.

"Away."

"Are you going to find different people?"

"I do not know." They had not interacted extensively with anyone outside the group; not since Tamara had been killed.

"We used to live on a fort, back in Virginia, before it fell. It wasn't perfect but it was better than running around in the woods all day."

"Those places never last, it isn't worth it." He reminded her gently.

"Ours lasted a long time." Rowan replied wistfully. "What about your sister, she knows what you're doing, right?"

"No." He couldn't keep it in anymore, he had to tell her everything. "We cannot stay with them anymore, our friend died because of them. I have tried saying so but she does not listen, she thinks it is safer with them but Buricko does stupid, insane things. It is like he is trying to get himself killed. I have to take her medicine and hide it at the deck before anyone knows, then I will take her to it and we leave before they know it is gone." He took a deep breath, glad to actually tell this to someone else, though it had all come out so quickly he couldn't remember how much he had even said in English.

"That's kind of..." Rowan trailed off, her voice tense. Clearly she understood enough of what he told her to disapprove.

"What?  _Dishonest?"_ He interjected before she could finish her sentence. "I know. But there is no other way."

* * *

They were climbing the stairs to the observation deck when she finally gave him an answer, "I can't go with you, I'm sorry."

Arvo couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice. "Why not? I thought you did not like staying here."

Rowan put her face in her hands and turned around the corner, he couldn't see her but could still hear her. "Don't make this hard for me, okay? I can't leave if there's a chance he'll come back." Her voice cracked. "I know I said he was gone, and he doesn't care about me anyway, but I can't-"

He found her leaning against the wall, she had taken her hair down now that she was back inside and the damp stands clung to her face.

Seeing her so broken up over this made him feel guilty for trying to pressure her. "Why would he not care about you?"

"Because I screwed up and he's still mad at me."

"He cannot stay mad  _forever_ , he is your  _family._ "

"It doesn't work like that."

" _Yes it does._  Natasha gets angry at me, but she does not hold  _grudges."_

"What was the worst thing you've ever done to her?"

He paused, wanting to tell Rowan the truth, that in a few days his lie was going to be the worst thing he'd ever done to his sister. But he was trying to get her mind off of their problems; not bring them up again. "When I was  _seven_  I pushed her down the stairs once. Broke-" He didn't know the word for wrist and instead held up his arm and pointed to it.

That piqued her interest. "Seriously? Why?"

"It was accident! The stairs, not the pushing." He clarified. "I did not think she would fall all the way down."

"But why'd you do that?"

"Because she helped my cousin duct tape me to wall, they wanted to play video games, and  _I was there first_." It was years ago, but he could still remember tearing at the tape and running up to the hallway screeching his head off, shoving her with all his might.

Rowan tilted her head back and snickered. "That's ridiculous."

"I know. It took many  _months,_ but she forgave me."

"But does she take care of you because she has to, or because she loves you?" She asked.

"We take care of each other. She is all I have."

"Oh. That's nice." She said faintly, with a melancholic expression. "I want to go with you. But I need more time."

Arvo nodded, knowing he had overreacted earlier when she first declined his offer. "I understand. I will be back in..." He held up four fingers. "That many days. So you can decide what you want then, okay?" Compromising always made him feel better.

"I don't want to be here anymore." Rowan admitted, biting her lip.

"I am not going to be gone forever." He tried to console her as he backed out towards the deck, knowing his words probably wouldn't have much of an effect. As soon as he left, she'd get lonely again. "Just be here when I get back."

* * *

Why was it so difficult for her to make up her damn mind? She might as well add Gale to the list of absent family members whose fates she would never find out about. Arvo was the first friend she had made in so long, and if she said no to him he would just go on with his life and leave her behind; and she'd be stuck at this godforsaken memorial, waiting for someone who in all probability wasn't going to show up.

Moving on was imperative, or she would die here. Sleeping at night was not a luxury she could afford and any attempts to nap during the day were futile, for every little sound kept waking her and she couldn't get the damn gift-shop open, which kept her out of a safer place to sleep. She couldn't keep going back to that trailer park for food, it was too dangerous.

And most of all, she couldn't live a life of solitude. She needed people, but people didn't last long in this world.

Rowan got up and wandered over to the old newspaper clippings on the wall, a strange mix of boredom and apprehension urging her to read over them again. There was a lot to memorize, but she had four days to kill.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is especially bad, fair warning.

Arvo opened the glass doors and stepped inside. The first thing he did was call for Natasha, trying to stay calm when he didn't spot her as soon as he walked through the doors.  _She's probably upstairs._ He shouted for her again, and she raced down the stairs and made a beeline for him, throwing her arms around him tightly. He felt a rush of relief upon seeing her again.

"Where have you been and why are you going out alone all of a sudden?"

"I'm just trying to help, Tasha. Buricko said I should." He answered innocently. "You used to dare me to do all kinds of stuff, remember?"

"That was before we got trapped in this country and the dead started walking. You need to stay inside." She scolded him.

"I'm only going to go one more time."  _In four days._  He pulled out a can of pineapples and gave it to her. "I got fruit for you."

Natasha smiled at him and walked over to the fireplace. Arvo followed, and asked, "How is your shoulder doing?"

"I had to take more pills today to stop the pain, the cold is making it worse. Buricko and Vitali left without me earlier."

Arvo frowned. "I hate it when they go off together, they are always causing trouble."

"You aren't still thinking about what happened are you? Those people aren't following us anymore, we are far away from them. Stop worrying, that is my job." She reassured him.

"Those monsters are not the only people they are capable of pissing off."

"I know. That's why I don't want you going out there anymore, humans are too dangerous."

"Not if you know the right things to say. And not everyone is awful, I know someone who isn't."

"Who?" Natasha asked, curious.

"Rowan!"

"That's really helpful, Arvo." She said dryly.

"We're the same age, probably. She's nice, and her hair is long." He added.

"You leave me for hours and hours just so you can go play with some girl?" She teased.

"We aren't  _playing,_ I'm not a child." He pouted. "I really like her."  _And_ y _ou will too, eventually._

She laughed. "Do you think we'll ever make it home?"

"Maybe, if we find a ship." Arvo suggested. "We could go to...uh, Alaska, and then sail all the way back to Russia."

"We'd never make it that far."

"I was not being serious!" He insisted. "You asked. I had to come up with something."

Natasha sighed. "I'm sorry I made you go with me to this country. It's my fault you're still in this mess."

"I would miss you too much, and it probably isn't any better over there." Arvo told her. He couldn't stand her bouts of melancholy. "Don't feel bad, I would rather be here with you than at home without you."

* * *

It was the last blank page in her journal, and she was about to rip it out. The led on her tiny stub of a pencil was nearing its end, but it would be enough. Four days had passed quickly and without incident, Rowan couldn't wait anymore. She had to go with Arvo, or that's what she kept telling herself to drown any doubt.

But she couldn't go without leaving behind a mark on this place, and paper was the only way to do it. The hours she had spent in the hallway scribbling in her journal while weary survivors dragged themselves up and down the corridor felt as if it had happened yesterday; though in actuality it had been an entire year since their sanctuary had fallen. Writing came so easy to her then, even when she could hear her cousins screaming at one another, their fury reverberating around the room where no wall was thick enough to block out the sound.

Now she had no idea where to start.  _I'm sorry I got her killed, I'm sorry that you hate me, I'm sorry that you're an asshole_ , everything she considered began with an apology, even if the words that followed after were much less repentant. Gale still resented her, months of bitter comments or being ignored told her as much. He had a right to, she knew that too; because she didn't pull the trigger when it counted. Brenna was the one who had a talent for killing, and yet she was dead because Rowan didn't share that talent.

She had learned to be stronger, but the way her hand trembled as she tried to hold the pencil steady reminded her of how she used to be.  _I'm still alive. But by the time you read this, I'll be long gone._ She couldn't resist swiftly scribbling an apology with minuscule lettering in the bottom right-hand corner before shoving the note into her pocket, crumpling the page further.

Rowan was just about to head down the staircase until a woman in the yard caught her eye. The stranger was sitting on one of the benches, leaned over the picnic table with her head in her hands. Upon seeing her, Rowan retreated behind the wall and into the room, hoping that she hadn't been seen.  _Why is she sitting there?_ If that person was one of the ones out to get her, surely she wouldn't be wasting time doing...whatever it was she was doing down there. But if she stayed, the woman might wander up here and find her, if she left, then there would be no way to know when it would be safe to return. And what of Arvo?  _He wouldn't be here this early._

She paced the room restlessly, going through the options in her head. It was too much for her nerves to hang out on the deck, so she began to creep down the steps to the back entrance, wincing with every creak in the wood, like the stranger could hear her from all the way inside.  _Make a break for it, get to the woods. Then you can figure out what to do._

As soon as she turned the knob and opened the door, she bolted.

* * *

For the first time in her life, she felt secure in the woods. As soon as her screaming lungs urged her body to stop moving and all she saw were legions of trees, their immense foliage blocking out the sky, she was reminded of exactly why that feeling was so rare. She could still see bits and pieces of the observation building through the cracks in the barricade of trees.

"Hey!"

Rowan turned around to find herself face to face with a man who had a rather imposing looking gun, and a facial expression that was a lot less so. Surprisingly, he wasn't pointing it at her, and wanting to keep it that way, she kept her hands off her own weapons.

"I'm not going to hurt you! I'm sorry I spooked you."  _Is my fear really that noticeable?_ "I'm Luke."

"Where did you come from?" It was the only thing she could say to someone who popped out of the bushes.

"My group isn't too far from here, we escaped from Howe's-"

"Howe's?" Her eyes widened. "Carver?" She remembered that the man in camouflage had mentioned the name as if it belonged to someone in a position of high authority.

"You know him?"

"Is my cousin with you? His name is Gale, I was with him when we got separated. Carver's people were the ones chasing us before."

Now it was Luke's eyes that widened. "You're Rowan." He stated bluntly.

When she nodded, the shocked look on his face faded away, replaced with a frown. "Uh..."

"Gale's not with you?" She held her breath.

"He was. I'm sorry you gotta hear this from someone you don't know, but he didn't make it."

It felt like a bucket of cold water had been poured atop her head. Luke began to elaborate, mentioning a herd, but she held up her hand and interrupted him before he could. "Okay."  _Don't say anything else, please._

He seemed to catch on, and didn't try to provide any more details. "Where are you at, is it safe?"

"I've been at the observation deck there, past the treeline. It's not as good of a spot to be in if you've been alone." Rowan couldn't stop her voice from cracking as she spoke.  _I was right about him not coming back, I guess._

"We aren't in the best of shape either, to be honest. We've been walking nonstop all night, and Rebecca's having a baby."

"I'm sorry." She told the ground.  _I'm sorry._

"There's nothing to apologize for." He said it with a hint of apprehension, like he was aware her words weren't meant for him but he still wanted to acknowledge them, because if he didn't, who would? "Could we stay at the deck with you? The others are on edge now, but they won't be too freaked out to see you once they know you're Gale's cousin; there's literally nowhere else we can go right now."

"Sure." Rowan knew exactly how hollow her response sounded, but she didn't care. As they walked together she began poking holes through the paper with her thumb, trying to not let tears cloud her vision as she followed Luke.  _I need Arvo. These people can keep the deck, I just need to see him._

* * *

"Clem! Hey, Clementine!" Luke's voice shocked her out of her stupor in time for her to catch a child walking towards them, the forlorn look on her face a contrast to the colorful jacket she wore. Rowan assumed this girl was Clementine and squinted at the rainbow stripes, hardly hearing the exchange that went on between the two, only knowing that at some point she was introduced as Gale's cousin.

"A stranger showed up while Jane and I were at the deck."

"Who?" Rowan jumped right into the middle of the conversation, finding that her breath had caught in her throat again, a sign that she was dreading the answer.  _He wouldn't have come back this soon, there's no way. There's no way._

"I don't know. He had medicine though, Jane tried to make me take it."

"You didn't, right Clem?" Luke asked.

She shook her head worriedly. "No. But she stole his gun and I thought she was going to kill him. He was looking for someone, he seemed pretty upset when we were the only ones there."

Luke looked at Rowan. "You said you've been here a while, does he sound familiar to you?"

"N-no! I just-I don't, why would she want to kill him?" She blurted out, instantly regretting her lie. These two appeared to be trustworthy, but upon realizing that they were harboring a woman who threatened to kill Arvo, she was beginning to have reservations about getting involved with them.  _Gale, what kind of people were you running with?_

"I have no clue. I can't figure her out myself." Luke rubbed the nape of his neck. "Clem, you and Rowan go get the others, I'm going to check up on Jane."

Luke went to the stairs and Clementine was headed towards the brick arch leading to the memorial. "Come on." She called.

The last time Rowan had interacted with a kid was before the apocalypse. Clementine wasn't saying anything to her, probably too busy with whatever was on her mind to talk to someone she only knew by association to Gale. Rowan felt an impulse to tell the girl she knew who Arvo was. If the things Arvo said about his group were true, then they would be coming after these people sooner or later. The best chance of meeting with him again was staying with them.  _But it's wrong not to warn them. The longer you wait the angrier they'll be. You told off Arvo for lying to his sister and now look at what you're doing._

_Just tell her now-_

"So how old are you?" She blurted out, opting for small talk.  _It's that woman's fault anyway. Blame her for whatever might happen in the future, until you can figure out a better plan._

"Eleven...I think. What about you?"

"Seventeen."

"Are you sure that place is good for us? No walkers or anything?" Clem asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I've been there for a while now with no problems. Unless sleep deprivation counts as a problem." She joked half-halfheartedly.

Clementine smirked. "I would say that's a pretty big problem."

"It is, yeah."

They went under the arch and around the corner, walking up to two people, one of which took notice of her immediately.

"Who the hell is she?" A man with an eye-patch shot her a scrutinizing look and placed his hand over his firearm. Rowan caught his reaction and took a step back, throwing her hands up in front her in a defensive gesture. A heavily pregnant woman was leaned up against one of the arches with a pained expression on her face, too wrapped up in her own agony to take notice.  _That must be Rebecca._

Clem was quick to come to her defense. "It's fine Kenny! This is Rowan."

"Gale's cousin?" Kenny questioned, clearly surprised.

"Yes." She nodded weakly before Clementine could answer for her.

"He said you were probably dead." The man commented.

_He had even less faith in me than I did him. Of course._ "...I'm not." She countered lamely.

"Kenny! Don't say that to her." Rebecca reprimanded him, showing that she had been paying attention after all, even though she ended her sentence with a shriek.

The noise stirred Kenny to a standing position. "Clementine, did you find a place? If there are walkers around, then they definitely heard that."

"Jane's trying to open up a gift shop at the building around back, it's pretty high up."

"When Bonnie and Mike get back we'll go."

Rowan shuffled away from the three of them as nonchalantly as possible, not wanting to listen in on the conversation that was beginning to take place between Clementine and Rebecca, they seemed to want to keep it private. She searched for a place to sit, pausing at the sight of a teenage girl leaned up against the wall with her arms drawn around her knees. She was curled up in the corner, secluded from everyone else. Rowan squinted, wondering if she was hallucinating. If this person was a part of their group, then how come the three of then didn't pay any attention to her?

"Hey, Rowan!" Rebecca was waving her over.

She turned away from the lone girl and headed over to them. "Yeah?"

"I wouldn't ask this of you if everyone else wasn't already busy, but can you go talk to Sarah and bring her over here?" Rebecca pointed in the direction of the girl with the rose colored glasses. "She lost her dad earlier. I don't want her to be all alone, Clem went to check on Mike and Bonnie and I'd talk to her but I'm kind of-" The woman groaned again.

"I get it."

Rowan wasn't exactly sure how to approach the teenager, assuming that she wanted to be left alone for a while.  _I can relate, I guess._ Regardless, she had to get all of these people to like her somewhat. Offering them a place to stay was a start, but she'd have to socialize a little. "Hi."

The girl stared at her with a furrowed brow. The left lens of her glasses was cracked.  _Just like Arvo's lens...I wonder what happened to her glasses, I doubt she broke them in a fight._

"I'm Rowan." She opted to let Sarah to introduce herself, knowing from recent experience how unsettling it would be for the girl if some random stranger revealed that she already knew her name.

"I'm Sarah. Who are you?"

"Someone, I guess...a person." She tried, flustered by a simple question. "Your friends wanted me to check on you."

"I don't think they want to be my friends anymore." Sarah said softly.

"Rebecca is really worried about you." Rowan reminded her.

"...Tell her I'll be okay. I'm just waiting for my dad to come back."

"Waiting isn't worth it." Rowan told her without missing a beat.

Sarah buried her head in her arms. "I know." She whispered softly. "But it makes me feel better. What else am I going to do?"

Rowan blinked in understanding. "...Can I wait with you then?"

"Sure."

Rowan sat down next to Sarah, the brunt of her situation hitting her at once. She had no cousins left alive and no Arvo to show her to someplace new. There was nobody left to wait for, and she felt stranded within this group of unfamiliar people.

Clementine returned in due time with two adults in tow, a redheaded woman and a man strong enough to carry two large water bottles.  _They must be Bonnie and Mike._  The trio met up with Rebecca and Kenny, and Sarah got up to join them, Rowan following.

Kenny was calming Rebecca, insisting that she just breathe as if that would solve everything; but it was obvious that her labor pains were getting a lot worse. Everyone stared at Rebecca as if caught in a trance, not bothering to exchange any 'welcome backs' with each other.

Sarah was the exception, she was stuttering Clementine's name, hardly able to speak.

A wall of walkers was advancing across the parking lot, bony arms outstretched, rotting jaws slack. The redheaded woman relayed the message and everyone sprung into action. Kenny snatched up his crowbar, already soiled with darkened blood. Mike picked up the bottles once again and Bonnie helped Rebecca walk.

"You guys go ahead. I'll hold them off." Kenny told them. "Keep that baby safe."

That was all they needed to hear before they were off towards the observation deck.

Rowan could hear Kenny bludgeoning the walkers but didn't dare turn around, Bonnie's dismay was all she needed to hear to imagine what was happening.

"He's protecting us!" Clementine assured the woman, before putting on a burst of speed for the staircase leading up to the balcony as walkers poured out from the memorial.

Rowan rushed up the stairs and caught up to Clementine in time to hear the girl go, "Jane? What's going on?"

Luke was sitting on the floor next to the short haired woman Rowan had seen before. The woman was tugging her shoes on.  _Oh my God. They were fucking._

When Clementine did not get a satisfactory answer from either of them she looked to Rowan, her confused face begging for an explanation. Being put on the spot, Rowan could only stutter and change the subject, "W-walkers! They're coming here."

"What the  _fuck_ are you two doing up here?" Kenny burst between her and Clementine, snarling at Luke. "You were supposed to be looking for walkers!"

The two men continued to argue as Kenny helped Rebecca get settled into the gift shop. Unable to take the quarreling, Rowan ran outside, first hit by the cold breeze and then by the shock of seeing the herd filling up the previously empty yard. They couldn't just lock themselves up in the shop and hope for the best, evidenced by the fact that the dead were already crawling up the steps.

Mike shouted for help and in seconds everyone sans Rebecca and Kenny were ready to defend with their weapons out. Rowan stayed behind, side by side with Sarah.  _Shooting at them is a waste of bullets!_ She held her knife tightly as Sarah wrung her hands, shaking with fear.

"Are you going to shoot them?" Sarah asked hurriedly.

Rowan shook her head, holding her knife as tightly as possible, an idea forming in her head. "Did anyone teach you how to use a gun?"

Sarah nodded. "I know how."

Assuming that the girl would have taken out a firearm if she had one, Rowan handed her own to Sarah, though a nagging voice in her head admonished her for giving up her gun. "Protect yourself, okay?"  _If she's going to be standing out here, she can't do it unprotected. You have a knife._

When the others rushed to the gate to hold it back, Rowan ran up to the door and began furiously stabbing walkers through the openings in the fence, Luke slashing with his machete and yelling at Clementine to find something to use as a barricade.

Rowan slammed against it with all her might once Clementine and Luke left. She turned around to see them pulling a canon over to the gate and moved to help them, pausing when one of the wheels rolled across a weak floorboard, pushing down on it.

"Get out of the way!" Mike yelled. Rowan scrambled backwards with the others, not even knowing what she was running from; just in time to watch the gate crumble to the floor, walkers falling with limbs snapping on impact. Then the loud groan began as the rope holding up the rest of the deck snapped.

This time, a larger part of the structure collapsed, the outer floorboards dropping to the ground and the rest soon followed, taking Sarah and Jane with them.

The woman was dangling over the edge, Luke gripping her arm tightly and shouting to Sarah, telling her that he'd be there soon, Clem begged Jane to save Sarah and the woman jumped down to aid her. The girl was laying atop the debris of the deck, leg bent at an awkward angle, screaming up at them; "Help me! Please!"

_People die when you're scared._ This time, she didn't have a gun, but she wasn't as afraid either. Rowan shuffled down the fallen part of the deck, not daring lift her feet too high when there was such a steep drop. A group of walkers limping out from behind the deck greeted her.  _I'll kill them all. I have to._

Or maybe not.

A gunshot sounded from behind her, hitting a walker right in the forehead. Two less successful bullets came after, one hitting a throat, the other a jaw. Rowan whirled around to see Sarah still laying on the ground, pistol pointed at another and ready to shoot as she dragged herself across the floor, a determined look on her face.  _She can't walk._ The dead was closing in on all sides.

"They're crawling up here too, grab Sarah and run!" Luke yelled at them while Bonnie and Mike sprayed their last bullets fending off the dead.  _We can't go back up that way, and nobody can come down either._

Jane took one glance at Sarah and once she realized the state her leg was in she shook her head slowly, eyes wide. "She's not going to make it, we have to go!"

"Yes I am! Don't try to make them leave me again!" Sarah exclaimed, trying to stand.

Rowan assisted Sarah, letting the girl lean on her for support. The others continued to kill the walkers, keeping those not clawing their way up the balcony from getting to the three.

"We've got to go around to the back!" Jane shouted at them, coming to Sarah's other side to help her move. They dodged and knifed their way through the herd, there was no way they could get saved by a bullet now, they were too far out of range.

A loud bang sounded.

"They dropped the damn deck!" Jane told them.

One of the walkers latched onto Jane's arm. When she broke free from Sarah and Rowan to wrestle with it the lack of support nearly brought them to the ground. "I can't carry her on my own, hurry!" Sarah aimed her firearm again and shot the walker clinging to Jane, killing it. Another walker sunk its teeth into Sarah's outstretched arm and she screamed in pain, jerking away from the walker; sending both of them to the ground. Rowan kept rolling; disoriented, away from the girl's bloodcurdling screams as two more closed in on her.

Rowan popped up again and a walker threw itself onto her. She stabbed it right through the temple before crashing to the floor, a dull ache spreading throughout her body as she stood again, narrowly evading the claws of another walker. There was no time to search for Jane, so she set her sights on the backdoor and sprinted for it.

Once inside, she shut the door and leaned against it, letting out a sob.  _I tried this time._

It took her a few minutes to realize Rebecca's screams had ceased, but when she did, Rowan ascended the stairs cautiously and tiptoed across what remained of the balcony, the entrance to the gift shop blocked by a wall of people, a baby crying from behind them.

Before she could back out, Luke caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and moved to greet her, the commotion alerting the others of her presence.

"Rowan? Where's Sarah and Jane?"

"Sarah's dead. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, please, I tried. I'm sorry." She choked out, turning away so she didn't have to witness the dejection on all their faces as Rebecca began to cry.

She wanted to spare the details, and Luke did not try to dissuade her. Rowan fled, repeating the words under her breath. She turned around the corner and bumped straight into Jane.

"She's-" Jane told her gravely.

"I know. Are you going to say 'I told you so'?" That had turned out to be a lot more bitter than intended.

"No." Jane flinched as if she had been hit as Rowan passed her and headed down the steps, settling down under the stairs and into silence again.

* * *

_"No one is safe forever."_

At first she thought the voice came from a dream, but when she lifted her head off the freezing floor and heard the hushed voices from upstairs, Rowan realized that she was indeed awake again. Unsure of how much time had passed; she focused on Clementine and Jane's conversation, noting that Jane was apparently leaving and Clem didn't want her to.

She could hear the steps groan as Jane walked down them and out the door. Rowan counted to ten and darted outside. Jane was sprinting for the forest and Rowan trailed her.

"Hey." She hissed. " _Hey!_  Jane. Why are you leaving?"

Jane turned around, narrowing her eyes coldly, all earlier emotion from the aftermath of Sarah's death, gone. "I can't-" She looked as if she was about to give an explanation, and then thought better of it. "I don't...-I don't even know you, why does it matter to you?"

Rowan blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. "It matters to Clementine."

"Clem can look out for herself." The uneasy way Jane spoke seemed to prove that she thought the opposite.

"She's eleven."

"Why aren't  _you_ leaving?"

Now it was her turn to dodge a question, but Jane fired another one at her before she could respond.

"Who else are you waiting for?"

_She knows._ Rowan gave in. "Why'd you threaten him?"

"Who, the Russian kid?"

"Arvo." She corrected. "You didn't have to do that, he wouldn't have hurt you."

"Seeing as he was pointing a revolver at Clem, I didn't know that at the time!" Jane defended herself.

_Clementine must have startled him or something, there was no way he pulled a gun on her unprovoked._ "You weren't going to kill him, were you?"

"No! I was trying to scare him."

"Well now he's never coming back for me! I don't know where he is."  _You ruined everything._

"I can't help you. Here." Jane whipped out a gun and tossed it to her, and she caught it in both hands.  _Arvo's revolver._ "There aren't any bullets in it, in case you were thinking about pointing it at me." She quipped.

"I-I wouldn't-"

Jane's tone softened. "Look, I'm sorry about all this. I know I could have handled that better, but I didn't know him, or if he had any friends nearby, or anything about him. I was trying to protect them." She pointed to what was left of the observation deck. "I can't help you."

"It's fine. You already have." She murmured as Jane kept walking towards the woods.

Rowan studied the gun in her hand while she walked to the observation deck, sending a wary glance or two towards the few remaining walkers milling about.  _When they come for them, you could give the gun back._ Eventually Luke and Clem would know that she lied to them, but all she'd have to do was hide it in her backpack until she could give it to Arvo's group.  _And what after that, are you gonna go with them? Or come back here and start all over? What if they actually never find us, then where are you going to go?_ She ignored the millions of scenarios that were popping up in her head.  _One step at a time._

"So forgive me for wantin' to enjoy one moment of something else!"

She had walked through the door just in time to catch Luke's outburst. Kenny had already turned around the corner with a disgusted sigh, the baby in his arms. Clem and Luke stared down at her, and she felt a sudden rush of guilt when she met their sympathetic eyes.  _They're being so nice to me._

"Oh. I didn't know you were down there. Do you want to come upstairs?" Luke asked as Clem offered a tired smile.

_Hiding in dark corners like a cat preparing to die isn't going to do you any good. "Okay."_

Gentle snow flurries were beginning to fall while Kenny and Luke fired back and forth, the others making valiant attempts to insert their own opinions.

"Rebecca needs time to rest, we all do!"

"We need to leave in the morning! Are you with us or not?" Kenny asked her.

"I think we should go as soon as possible." Rowan responded.

"See? Even she gets it." Kenny hissed at Luke, who glowered at her for a moment.  _The quicker we leave, the quicker I'll find him. Sorry Luke._

"Kenny's right, we need to go soon." Clementine said, and Luke's scowl deepened.

Bonnie spoke up, unzipping her backpack and presenting the opened pouch to everyone. "We ain't so bad off. I found a whole bunch of stuff in the trash. We could leave in the morning just fine."

_She found the stash. Shit._  Rowan wanted to say something, make Bonnie return it to the garbage can.  _They'll know you're even more untrustworthy and useless if you tell them._ She stayed quiet.

"But...That's someone else's things." Clem glanced at Luke.

"It-it's mine! I was saving it, but you guys can have it too. Rebecca probably needs food."  _He's gonna be so pissed._

Rebecca smiled. "Thank you."

"No point in keeping it here, right?"

"Alright then, it's settled. We're leaving tomorrow." Kenny declared. "We'll stop by the town, maybe we can even find a car to fix up or something."

"We got a long way to go tomorrow, better get some sleep." Mike said as he laid behind the counter.

Everyone else was on the verge of sleep, Rowan too enthralled with watching the snowflakes fall to notice Luke had come up to her. "Uh, Rowan?"

"What?"

"Nobody hates you, alright? I know you tried to help her. It was my fault." He bit his lip as he admitted it out loud.

He was telling the truth. If he hated her, he wouldn't be talking to her right now.

"It was my fault." Luke repeated. "I should have-"

"Don't think about what you should have done. Just...do something different the next time."

"I know. I trying tell myself that all the time but I still can't keep it off my mind y'know?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Did you or Jane stop her from turning-"

"No."

Luke reached for his machete. "Get some sleep, you look like you need it."

She didn't ask where he was going.

Rowan looked around the gift shop she had tried to break into so many times. It would be her first and last night spent here, and for once she felt safe. She didn't know any of these people, but being with them was a big upgrade from constantly waking in the middle of the night from fears of death or abduction. When she laid her head down onto her backpack she could feel the revolver jabbing into her temple, but she just shifted her position and welcomed sleep, comfortable with the knowledge that this group at least tolerated her presence.

* * *

The lake was finally safe enough to walk across, but he still chose to take the long way around. Arvo had deposited his bag in another trashcan far from the observation deck hours ago, the medicine was the one thing those two thieves didn't take from him, but it still felt weird to not be carrying it, and even worse to be without his revolver. He still couldn't believe he made it all the way back with just the screwdriver.

That violent woman had killed Rowan. There was no other explanation, or she would have been there waiting for him.  _She's gone._  He wanted to run to Natasha and tell her everything, that the nice little girl had tricked him, distracting him so her older friend could jump him. That Rowan was dead and his gun was taken. Buricko was gonna be furious, and he wasn't going to give him another, and not just because that revolver was literally the only one the man had left to give.

Arvo opened the door cautiously and glanced around the house, his heart sunk once he saw that Natasha wasn't the only one inside. Everyone was sitting by the fireplace.

"Arvo!" Natasha waved him over with a grin. "Where have you been now?"

"I..." His throat felt dry.

"What did you get?" Buricko demanded before Arvo could find his bearings. "You're always taking so long, you must have something good."

Arvo shook his head. "Nothing."

"What?" Buricko narrowed his eyes and stood up.

"I didn't get anything."  _I only lost everything._

Vitali stopped messing with the fire long enough to snicker and insult him. "You are nothing but a disappointment!"

"Don't say that to him!" Natasha snapped at Vitali before looking at him with concern. "What happened to you?"

"Arvo, where the fuck is your gun?" Buricko barked, upon realizing he didn't have it with him.

What could he say? I dropped it? One of the dead things ate it? A pack of rabid animals attacked him and stole it? All he had was the truth, "It got stolen."

"By who?"

"A crazy woman! She made the little girl distract me so they could rob me, I thought she was gonna kill me." It sounded even more embarrassing out loud.

"Was it only those two?" Natasha questioned.

"N-no. They have lots of people, I heard the woman mention them."

"Let's go after them." Buricko declared suddenly.

"And do what?" Natasha asked incredulously. "Kill them?"

"I don't-No! They are dangerous." Arvo insisted. "And there are a lot of them, I heard her-"  _More of us are going to die._

"Don't be a dirty coward Arvo, I agree with Buricko. Those bastards think they're so tough, we'll show them."

_You always agree with Buricko._ "Do you not remember what happened last time you said that?" Arvo shot back.

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Vitali roared, balling up his fists as if he was preparing to punch him.

"Both of you be quiet." Natasha said. "We don't have to run out in the middle of the night looking for them right this second, so calm down."

"We should take all of their stuff." Buricko decided. "Not just the gun and ammo."

"We don't need to do that." Natasha insisted and Arvo quickly agreed.

"Why not? They took everything Arvo had, so we should take everything they've got! It's only fair."

"Yeah." Vitali said. "I like that idea."

Natasha frowned. "We can leave tomorrow morning and get the gun back or something; we need that gun Arvo, you can't be without one."

He looked at her, dismayed.  _Even Natasha is going to go._ He made one last plea. "These people are murderers, they're like the ones-"

"Be a man for once in your life," Buricko scoffed. "We can be murderers too, if we have to. You've just got to do the talking."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't think this needs to be said but I'll say it anyway; the Russians are supposed to be speaking Russian but I didn't use Google translate in any of this because it would be an utter waste of time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter probably wins the award for 'chapter with the most amount of Google translate' so there's that.

Arvo stared at the ceiling, lamenting at how quickly it took for everything to go wrong, and pondering how much worse it was going to get. He had spent a large portion of the night debating on how to get himself out of this mess, and now it was dawn. When Natasha woke, the pills would be the first thing she'd ask for, and a couple of loose ones from his pocket would be all he could give her. Thankfully, she was still asleep, which gave him plenty of time to decide exactly how to structure his explanation in a way that would anger her the least.

If those two murderous thieves hadn't shown up, then they would have been out of this hellhole by now. Rowan would still be alive. He was an idiot to think that she'd be able to hold out for a few more days, all alone and sleep deprived.  _You should have brought her back here, even that would have been better than leaving her alone. O_ _h God, she's really dead._

He turned on his side, away from Natasha who was still sleeping soundly. Arvo placed an ear off the ratty blanket and onto the wood floor. Complete silence. Buricko and Vitali had to be outside, but there was no way they would have wandered far. Not when a potential robbery was a few hours away. They had no clue he had left with the medicine, and since most of it was for Natasha's shoulder anyway, the chances of them inquiring about it would be slim. At least that worked out in his favor.  _If things went like they were supposed to, we would have almost been at the deck by now._

Her muffled yowling pulled him out of his thoughts.  _She's awake._  Natasha lifted her head up long enough to tell him, "Pills," before falling back onto the blanket. Arvo unzipped his left pocket, dreading what she'd say next. He fished out the pills and handed them to her.

"I'll get you water Natasha, hold on." He prepared to stand, but she swallowed them before he could even get up.

"Why did you have them in your pocket, where is the bag?" She clutched her shoulder and rolled onto her back. "Oh shit, it hurts."

"Are you okay?" Arvo asked, pointedly avoiding her question. "Maybe we shouldn't go anywhere today, I'll tell Buricko-" He offered.

"No, it'll be fine soon. Arvo, where is the bag?" She repeated sharply.

"I put the bag somewhere else." He replied nonchalantly, refusing to meet her eyes, knowing she'd catch on soon.

"Where?"

"Far away from here."

"Stop playing games! You are not fooling me, what did you do with it?"

"I'm sorry, Tasha. I'm really sorry."

"Brother, I don't understand-"

"I hid the medicine, because we have to get away." He finally blurted out. "I can show you where it is later...When we leave."

"What?" She stared blankly at him, trying to comprehend what he had done.

This was supposed to be the part where he told her that Rowan would join them and that everything would work out okay, but that wasn't exactly true anymore, and he was done telling lies. To her, at least. "I'm sorry, I had to."

"What the  _fuck_  do you mean you had to?" She snarled.

Arvo flinched at her tone. "We're going to die if we stay with them. They're making us go after a bunch of murderers again, we're going die from their stupid schemes like Tamara did-"

"We did this for you! Do you think I would have stuck around with them if I didn't have to keep you alive? The two of us can't make it alone!" She hissed.

"I didn't ever need anyone to look after me!" Arvo shouted. "You think I'm useless like everyone else does!" He accused. "You never listen to me! You weren't even there, she didn't bleed out all over you, you didn't have to watch her die!" He stopped mid-sentence when tears began to blur his vision, alarmed at his own outburst.

Natasha shook her head, unresponsive to his grief. "I can't believe you did this." Neither could predict how Buricko and Vitali would react to this, so he knew she wouldn't say anything to them. "You don't understand what you've done, do you?"

"Yes I do. I don't want you to die next, don't you understand?"

She didn't reply.

* * *

A feeling of regret for leaving in this weather had sunk in a long time ago, but she was still putting one foot in front of the other, blindly following the pathway as the wind clawed at them. They were all in bad shape, Rebecca worst of all. Not even a hundred nights of sleep could have prepared them for this trek. Rowan stared over the stone wall at the hay bales in the field to her right, and then to the forest on the left.  _We've been out here for a long time already and there's no sign of him._ With every passing hour the chances of meeting up with him again got slimmer and slimmer.

As Rowan looked around, flanked by the others in this desolate wasteland, accepting the fact that she'd probably never see him again didn't seem so bad. It had been a long since she had traveled with a crowd, she realized that she missed even the bickering and in-fighting common to larger groups.  _It isn't like he doesn't have anyone else to go to, he has his sister,_ she told herself, taking another quick peek through the trees. Everything was still, encased in a delicate layer of frost.

"Why are you so jumpy?" Bonnie asked.

"I'm just cold." She muttered.

"We all are." Luke retorted, turning around to glare at Kenny.

Rebecca stumbled, dropping to her knees.  _She doesn't look so good._

"Let me help." Rowan said, helping Bonnie get Rebecca back on her feet.

"We shoulda stayed put. We should go back while we still can." Luke declared.

"I can keep going." Rebecca said, barely audible over Kenny and Luke, who had broken into yet another quarrel.

"Here's a place to sit." Mike pointed at a tractor wheel leaned up against a rock. Her baby's whimpering developed to wails as Rebecca settled in, trying to soothe him.

Rowan kneeled beside her. "Do you need anything?"

"A minute. I just need a minute." Rebecca murmured, head drooping.

Even over the screech of the wind, they still caught the bold greeting, "Hello!" farther ahead. Rowan jerked her head up and squinted through the snowflakes at a figure limping towards them leisurely, a distinctive squeak sounding with every step he took. The person called out again, " _Vy menya slyshite_?"

_That's him._ Rowan felt a mix of apprehension and relief at the sight of Arvo. She watched him advance as everyone else contemplated who he was and what he could possibly want from them. They were too busy observing Arvo to notice her unzipping her backpack and taking out the revolver. She stood up, preparing to meet him.

* * *

Natasha was still angry at him, but this would be the last time he'd ever have to play translator, that was his only consolation. Arvo kept his eyes on the pack of people further down the trail, unable to tell if they were the ones. There was a shorter figure among them, and children were a rare find these days, so this was his best bet.  _Don't let your guard down, if that woman isn't with them, then she's hiding somewhere close._

_All you have to do is talk to them...And stand back and do nothing while they are robbed of everything they have._ He was just the messenger, they wouldn't shoot the messenger, would they?  _Rowan didn't do anything to them, and they still killed her,_  he reminded himself. He had to be direct and diplomatic about this, just like Tamara had taught him. By now everyone had ran ahead, concealed in the woods and ready to surround the strangers. They'd back him up if things went awry, but the absence of his revolver still made him feel vulnerable.

Arvo came up to greet them, disappointed when he realized that he did indeed recognize the little girl. These were the right people. He didn't want to steal from her, not after she had refused to take Natasha's medicine, even when that woman tried to make her.  _Even a kid is braver than you._  "Your name is Clementine, yes?"

Before the girl could answer, Rowan pushed her way through the cluster of people, calling his name. Arvo gaped at her, eyes wide with shock.

"Ryabina!" Arvo shot forward once he registered what he was seeing, pulling her away from the strangers and into a tight hug. He smiled when she wrapped her arms around him and returned the gesture. Arvo nestled his head into her shoulder to avoid the puzzled expressions of the people behind them.  _They must have been keeping her prisoner for some reason, if they didn't kill her._  With that thought in his head he shifted to the side while still embracing her, letting go when she was standing to his left and no longer near them. Arvo glowered at group, wondering if they had hurt her, even though didn't seem frightened of them, he wouldn't put it past them.

"How in the hell do you know this guy?" A man with a bloody eye-patch questioned, clearly suspicious.

"He's my friend." She replied, and Arvo grinned at her response, still amazed that she was alive.

"I thought you didn't know him!" Clementine said.

"It's okay-" Rowan started.

The one-eyed man cut her off and looked straight at him. "What do you want? We ain't got all day."

"Your friend took something of mine, where is it? I need it back." Arvo told Clementine, ignoring the man's comment.

"I have it." Rowan spoke up.

Arvo raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Here." Rowan handed the revolver to him.

"No guns, no guns!" Buricko announced while Vitali popped up from behind the rock.

"Who is that girl, Arvo?" Natasha emerged from the woods, pointing her pistol.

"She's Rowan." He stuttered, still staring at his gun. He had what they came for.

"Are these the people who robbed you?"

Technically, none of them had directly stolen from them. "Um...No, I don't see the woman who did it."

"You said there were two, is that kid the other one?" Buricko asked. "Well?"

"Uh...Yes." He braced himself for their mockery. "The woman might still be here, I don't know. Be careful."

"She's even smaller than my dog." Buricko snickered. "Tell them to put their guns on the ground and that we are taking everything they have."

"What else do you want from them? I already have the gun, let's just go." He urged, knowing it wouldn't be that simple. "I've never even seen any of these people, they didn't do anything."

"I don't care! Do they have bullets? Medicine? Your sister will need more, eventually."

Natasha narrowed her eyes at Buricko's words. "Just try, Arvo."

"What are your friends saying?" Clementine asked.

"They are saying, that they want all of you to put your guns down so we can take your things." He translated.

"What the hell?" The man standing in front of him glowered, the others echoing his protest.

"No. You aren't taking anything from us!" Clementine exclaimed boldly.

"They are not telling me to ask." Arvo wilted. "They won't listen to me. I'm sorry Clementine."  _Sorry isn't going to help her._

"You can't do this! Jane took your things, not me!" The girl looked to Rowan now. "Make him stop!"

He switched back to Russian. "It's a trap!" Arvo glanced around, just waiting for Jane to ambush him again. It only took a second for Buricko to lift his gun, and a few more seconds for everyone else to follow. Arvo nervously eyed the barrel of the gun the brown-haired man now directed at his chest.  _Shit._ "No, wait-"

"What the hell did you tell them?" The person with the eye-patch asked angrily.

"Everyone stay calm!" Another man yelled right after him.

"Why are they being so stubborn?" Vitali snarled from behind the rock.

"Where is this Jane?" Arvo asked, trying not to let the demands from either side mix up his thoughts.

The man pointing the gun at him spoke. "Jane left last night. Rowan, tell him."

"She's gone. He's telling the truth."  _Rowan wouldn't lie to you._ She continued, "Luke, put your gun down."

"Not until they do." Luke stated firmly, tightening his grip on the weapon.

"Why aren't they listening! Make them put the guns down!" Buricko said.

"They won't do it, I'm trying! Lower your guns first, maybe they'll stop!" Arvo urged.

"Try harder!" Natasha demanded. "There is no way we're putting them down first!"

Buricko was getting even angrier, and took to yelling at them himself. "I am telling you all, put your fucking guns down! You don't want to make me angry!"

"Put your guns down, or we'll all die." Rowan pleaded to Clementine's people. "Arvo-"

"Shut up! Shut up!" He yelled in both English and Russian. "I-uh-"

"I will not let them touch that baby!" The one-eyed man announced.

"You have a baby with you?" Arvo tried to see through the group, hearing the crying child for the first time over the tense altercation. "They've got a baby with them!"

"Yeah, so back the fuck off, or I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"I don't want to die. Buricko, stop this now! Just put your gun down, please!" Everything was spiraling out of control so quickly, he could hardly keep up and found it hard to speak either language. "Please!"

"Don't be a coward, I'll die before I let them win! I'm not afraid to die anymore, go to hell!" Buricko shouted.

Rowan tugged on his arm. "We need to go!"

"Natasha won't leave!" She was too busy trying to get the redheaded woman to lower her weapon.

"Make her!"

"I can't!"

"Rebecca, no! Somebody help!" A single gunshot sounded, bringing the commotion to a stop, for just a moment.

Everyone was scrambling left and right while Buricko prepared to fire. The last thing he heard was Vitali yelling, "Buricko, there are too many! Just stop! Back down!"  _For once, he sees reason._

* * *

Rowan couldn't tell who scattered for cover and who got shot, but even when pressed against the cold ground as hard as she could, she could still hear people shouting over the flurry of gunfire.

The man who she assumed was Buricko was on the floor, spraying bullets everywhere while blood poured from his leg. Kenny was behind a tree, poking out into the open to fire his gun on occasion. She got to her knees, cowering as she did so, and turned to see Arvo sobbing and frantically pumping Natasha's chest. " _Prosti menya sestra, ne ostavlyay menya! Pozhaluysta, ne ukhodi! Nyet, nyet, nyet! Ya mogu spasti vas derzhis!"_

The woman was dying, her garbled words fading into weak murmurs.

" _Pozhaluysta!_ Help me!" Arvo wailed, cut off by a nasty coughing fit.

She braced in fear of a stray bullet hitting her in the back, scooting as close to Arvo as possible, too frightened to feel ashamed that she was practically using him as a shield. "Arvo, we have to go!" Rowan grabbed his arm, trying to pull him up. Arvo yanked his limb away, breaking the clasp on her bracelet and sending the silver shark charm flying, then went back to trying to revive her, this time even more determined than before. "That's not going to work! You'll die!" Rowan warned for the last time.

" _Zatknis!"_

The roar of gunfire was too much for her to bear.  _You can't convince him, just go._ She stood and vaulted over the wall, slumping against it while she tried to bring her breathing back to normal.

"What the hell was that!?" Someone exclaimed from beside her, and she jumped at the sight of Luke scowling at her from the other side of the wall, holding his leg tightly. Clementine was swaddling the baby right next to her.

"W-what?" She blinked.

"Why did you lie to us? You knew those people!" Clementine accused.

"I-I, no, no, I only knew Arvo, I swear! I thought I could handle it. I didn't think this would happen!" Rowan shielded herself with her hands, believing they'd shoot her on the spot. She could still hear Arvo weeping from the other side of the wall. When it dawned on her how easily she had just abandoned him to die, she began to cry as well, making it even harder for her to breathe.

Luke growled impatiently at her reaction. "Okay, forget that shit for right now! We're pinned down y'all, we've got to do something or those guys are gonna kill us!" Luke stopped to clutch at his shin. "I'm going to have to get over to the other side like this, damn it!"

She choked through her tears, sobbing harder as if it would drown out the sound of screaming and bullets whizzing through the air.

"Then quit talking and do it!" Clementine said.

"Rowan, can you shoot at the guy in the woods so I can get over to your side?"

"I c-can't, I don't have a gun, please don't-" Rowan stammered. She couldn't shoot at Arvo's people, but if she was truly on their side then she should have shot Luke, and she couldn't do that either. "I can't kill anyone, I can't do this-"

"You don't have to kill anyone, for fuck's sake!" Luke hollered. "Just calm down!"

"I'll do it." Clementine declared, reaching over the wall and firing a single shot towards the large rock in the woods. "Go now, go!" She pulled the trigger twice more. " _Go!_ "

Luke limped across the gap, diving into the snow and behind the safety of the wall.

"Kenny just shot one of them!" Clementine reported. Rowan sat there, sniffling, trying to decide if she should consider that a good thing or not.

The desperation in Arvo's voice increased sharply and Rowan peaked over the wall to see that Kenny had pulled him off of Natasha and was now holding a gun to his head. Arvo was squirming wildly, bawling for his sister.

"If you don't come out right now, I'm going to kill this kid!" Kenny bellowed.

"Let him go!" Rowan screeched at him. "That guy isn't going to stop shooting even if you kill him!"

"Like hell he ain't!" Kenny retorted, strengthening his hold on Arvo. "Get out here, right fucking now!"

" _Vy rasstrelyali Natasha, ublyudok! On byl uzhe mertv, ubiv yego tol'ko pomozhet!"_ Was the outraged response of the man behind the rock as he took aim at Kenny and Arvo. Rowan wanted to tell him to surrender, but it'd pointless. The man took aim, but seemed to have a change of heart at the last second and ducked back down behind the rock. Luke fired a bullet towards him, narrowly missing.

"Oh no!" Clementine gasped. Rowan ducked back down and crawled over to her to see what had caused that reaction; Natasha had started to reanimate and was heading towards them.

Arvo fought even harder to get away from Kenny. " _Pozhaluysta, dayte mne idti! Mne nuzhno, chtoby uvidet', yesli ona v poryadke_!"

The reanimated Natasha snarled, snapping her teeth at them. As soon as Clementine shot the walker in the head, Arvo tore himself away from Kenny, causing the older man to dive to the floor to avoid getting shot. " _No!"_ He dragged himself over to her body, watching the blood pooling out from under her head, tears streaming down his face. When he looked up, he gave Clementine one of the most malicious death glares Rowan had ever seen.  _She turned, there was no other option._

The man in the woods ran towards Kenny, " _Ya vas vsekh ub'yu seychas!_ You will all pay-" His words were cut off by the sound of his own gargling; blood gushing up and over his lips like a waterfall. He dropped to his knees to reveal Jane standing by a tree, aghast at what she had just done.

Rowan recoiled from the spectacle just in time to miss the bullet Kenny unloaded into his head, and swiftly dragged herself through the blood and snow and to Arvo.

His bloody hands were clenched into fists and he was still sniffling, kneeling beside his sister's corpse in disbelief. Rowan wasn't even sure if he knew she was there, let alone that the rest of his people were dead. " _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,_ " Was one of the few phrases in Russian that he had taught her, and now it was all he was saying.

"Hey." She called out softly, extending an unsteady hand to set atop of his own. As soon as her fingertips made contact with his skin he pulled his hand away and glared at her. Rowan was taken aback at having to witness the fury in his eyes for a second time, and inched backwards. " _Pochemu vy pozvolyayete yey ubit' Natasha?_ " Arvo wheezed. He spoke quietly at first, and then ended up hollering, " _Vy dazhe ne mozhete mne pomoch' glupaya suka! Ya tebya nenavizhu!_ "

Rowan bit her lip, trying to hold back a sob. She didn't know what any of that meant, but whatever it was, it wasn't kind. Bonnie and Luke glanced towards them, but only for a moment before turning their backs. They were all packed in tightly around Rebecca's body, quietly expressing their sorrows together. Rowan looked back at Arvo, still grieving over Natasha's body.  _What did you want me to do?_ She wondered, wanting to go back to him but stayed away, dreading his reaction.

_Just run._

"She's dead because you were too fucking stubborn to stay behind one goddamn day! We might not have even run into  _them_  if we stayed!" Luke seethed, making a sweeping hand gesture over the bodies of Arvo's group.

"No! Nobody is at fault here!" Mike tried to diffuse the situation.

"Those bastards were coming either way! Would you have wanted them to find their way to the deck and corner us there!? That bitch knew them, it was probably what they were planning all along!" Kenny thundered back.

Rowan wished she could just sink into the ground, but still made no effort to move, knowing she had missed her opportunity to flee by about five seconds.

Clementine came to her defense. "Don't blame her! She didn't want any of this to happen!"

"Everyone just stop yelling." Bonnie advised. "Kenny did what he had to, to save the baby. You can't possibly fault him for that." She said with an air of finality. "We're all alive, and Rebecca would have wanted us to take care of him."

That was enough to placate Luke, at least somewhat. "Fine. But I told you,  _all_ of you, that this was a stupid idea!"

"The threat is gone." Jane said. "Saying, 'I told you so' and arguing about what could have been done to avoid this is pointless now."

"I know what we could have done to avoid this, kicked you out before you could start any bullshit! This is your damn fault in the first place!" Kenny snarled.

"She just saved your ass!" Luke quipped.

"The threat is gone!" Mike said. "Let's just move on."

"No it ain't." Kenny muttered darkly, stalking towards them. He passed right by her and lifted Arvo up off the ground by the hood of his jacket; fist connecting with his face. "You piece of shit!"

Mike and Luke were quick to act, ripping Kenny off of Arvo and demanded that he stop beating him. This only provoked the man further, he pulled his gun out and aimed it at Arvo despite the fact that both Luke and Mike were shielding him.

Rowan rose to her feet unsteadily. "You don't have to do this, just go-"

"Give me  _one_  good reason why I shouldn't kill you and your commie boyfriend!" Kenny snarled, turning the gun on her.

"Please...I thought I could fix it, I'm sorry. We didn't want this-"

"You want to fix it? Then  _you_  kill him." He mocked, pointing towards Arvo. "That'll fix it."

"What the hell is wrong with you? They're just kids!" Luke pointed his gun at Kenny now, to ensure he wouldn't shoot at either of them, and then reassured her, "You don't have to kill anyone."

"There is house, we can take you! Food!" Arvo begged, peeking at her as if to say,  _play along._

"Bullshit, you're just trying to save yourselves!" Kenny jeered at her, "Why don't you stand in front of him instead, I'll kill two shitbirds with one bullet!"

"No! There's food there, I swear." Rowan babbled.

"See? They want to help. Rowan's helped us before." Luke reminded him.

"We were already headed somewhere else before these fuckers showed up, let's finish it and get to that town by nightfall. Get out of the way!"

"How much worse could his place be? He must have supplies if his people were living there, and you're telling me you're going to pass that up for some walker-infested city?" Jane said.

"Shut the fuck up!"

"Think about the baby Kenny!" Bonnie implored.

That was enough to get him to put away his gun, and Rowan almost cried out in relief. "We got something to tie them up with?" He asked.

"Enough for one." Bonnie told him.

Kenny narrowed his eyes. "Tie him." Bonnie moved to bind Arvo's wrists. He then turned to her. "Give me your backpack."

Rowan relinquished it immediately, figuring that refusing to do so would get her killed.

They began to walk, the snow floating down, softer than it did earlier. Rowan kept her head down, trying to ignore the gun poking into her spine. A little piece of silver on the ground caught her eye but she didn't dare move to pick it up. She looked down at her unbound wrists, her bracelet now just as barren as the wasteland ahead of them.


	5. Chapter 5

_Why am I leaving if she's still there?_ Arvo wondered, glancing over his shoulder. Natasha's body was lying on the ground, right where the child had shot her in the head.  _I don't understand, I don't..._ The man with the eye-patch, Kenny, shoved him forward, screaming at him in a language he realized he was no longer able to comprehend.

" _I don't understand you._ " Arvo told him flatly, barely audible. There was nowhere else to look but down at his scarlet stained hands. They wouldn't let him turn around and he couldn't lift his head. Rowan was walking next to him; the mouth of a gun pressed into her back. The eye-patch man could have shot her right that second and he wouldn't have even cared. That little girl had murdered Natasha for no reason, and she didn't do anything, didn't even  _try_ to stop her.  _And I told Natasha she was a good person, but she's just like them._

Yet, she was being treated the same way he was; like a prisoner. These people weren't acting her as if she was a part of their group, more like  _they_ had been the ones who had been betrayed. After one of their own had robbed and nearly blown his head off, they treat him like the monster. They claimed that Jane had left when she had been waiting in the woods to ambush him the whole time.  _That woman will kill me as soon as she gets the chance._ He figured Rowan was probably in on it too. He wanted to tell these people exactly whose fault this was, that he didn't want any of this and had tried to stop Buricko from shooting, but he didn't have the words. At least, not ones they'd understand.

* * *

The group staggered through the woods without a sound, with the exception of Arvo's leg brace and Kenny's subsequent complaints. Rowan didn't dare speak, especially when she could feel the icy barrel of the gun on her spine even through her sweater.  _I shouldn't have ran away from the deck yesterday, I should have went looking for Arvo as soon as I realized Jane and Clementine ran into him, I should have done something, anything else._ These people had brought her only two things; closure and company, and it was pretty clear neither of those things meant much now.

"Can't you shut that thing up?" Kenny growled for what had to have been the hundredth time, but Arvo continued walking as if he hadn't even heard him.

Rowan stared at Arvo often, hoping he'd eventually glance back at her or give her some other sign that he didn't hate her guts. It had been hours since the shootout; the tears on his cheeks and blood on his hands had dried, but the despondent look on his face never faltered.

A cry of distress from Luke confirmed that he had fallen to the ground due to the burden of his leg injury, and Mike was exerting all the strength he had to try and get the man back on his feet.

"Hold up! We're gonna stop for a bit." Kenny snarled, and Rowan paused immediately while Arvo passed by her.

She had considered warning him, but Kenny had already rushed past her; seized his neck, and shoved him. Rowan winced as Arvo tumbled to the ground and landed on his bad leg, but the inkling of an urge to defend him was drowned out by the protests of literally everyone else.

"They're getting what they deserve!" The man yelled at the others, contempt flaring in his eyes. "When I tell you something, you fucking listen, you understand?" Arvo had no reaction, and just lie there in the snow, propped up on his elbow. "I'm fuckin' talking to you!" Still no response.

"He understands, leave him alone!" Clementine demanded. "Stop doing that!"

"Just fuckin' stay put!" Kenny sneered, and then pointed his gun at her again. "You. Go over there." Her gaze trailed his outstretched arm, pausing upon seeing Luke and Clementine. " _Go!_ "

Rowan approached them cautiously, knowing Kenny's gaze and gun were still glued to her. She reached up and touched her hair, all piled up into a bun. The last time she had spoken to them they had fought for her life, but despite that, they were likely still angry with her.

"It's only been a few days and that man is already actin' like a goddamn dictator." Bonnie muttered to Luke.

"You think I don't know that? Hell, we've both been bickerin' for days."

"Which is why you should stop!" Clementine told him sharply. "It's just making things worse."

"I'm just sayin', I left Howe's to get away from this horseshit, not to get plopped right back into the thick of it. Here Clem, keep pressure on his leg, I'm going to-" Bonnie paused at the sight of her. Rowan averted her eyes just in time to miss Bonnie's concerned ones. "Hey, why don't you sit down? You don't look so good."

"He told me to come over here." She said, jumping to her own defense.

"That's fine, there's a place right here." Rowan felt Bonnie's hands clutch her arm and guide her to the log. Rowan inched to the edge, as far away from Luke as she could manage. "Mike's going to talk to Kenny and get him to leave your friend alone, alright?" With that, she stood and left.

"Hi Rowan." Clementine said, and Rowan flinched before realizing the girl was only greeting her.

"Uh, hey." Luke spoke, rubbing the back of his neck. He hissed suddenly, lurching forward to grasp at his leg. "Goddamn!" He continued, quieter this time, "We're so fucked.  _I'm_ fucked."

"Don't say that." She told him. "You're still alive."

"I guess I am. Bullet in my leg, out in the middle of the woods and starving, but still alive. And all of my friends, gone, and I couldn't do anything to stop it.  _Didn't_ do anything." He corrected himself bitterly.

"Are you still blaming yourself?" Rowan asked him directly, forgetting that she probably shouldn't be speaking with either of them.

Luke's eyes widened once she spoke. "Yeah. I am. Because it was my fault, and I gotta live with it. I coulda done more."

"I know I said not to think about it, but it's hard not to." She said, waiting a second before posing the question, "If they could forgive you, would you stop blaming yourself?"

"I don't know." He put his head in his hands. "I really don't."

_I don't know either._ "I'm sorry." Rowan said quickly, feeling as if she had overstepped some invisible boundary, remembering that these people were supposed to loathe her. "I didn't-"

"How come you lied to us? It would have been nice to have a heads up about those guys back there." Luke abruptly changed the subject.

"I'm sure you had your reasons for not telling us the whole truth, but Luke is right." Clem said. "I don't know if it would have stopped them, maybe we could have gotten ready to make a deal, or something. "

_Not telling the whole truth. That's too nice a way of putting it._ "I lied." She corrected. "I just freaked out, okay? After hearing what happened to Arvo with Jane I kind of just, I couldn't decide what to tell you, I thought you'd react badly the longer I hid it from you guys and I kept putting it off." She rambled. "I thought'd I'd never find Arvo again. We were going to leave together, with his sister. I didn't want this, and he didn't want any of this to happen either, you know that, don't you?"

"Anyone can see that." Luke commented. "Except Kenny."

"How did you even meet him?" Clem asked.

"I got shot right before Gale and I were separated, and he helped me with my arm because I couldn't do it myself, I probably would have died of infection or something if he didn't help me." She stopped to brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "We ran into each other a few days later and he asked me to come with him, because he was trying to leave his group and I had nowhere else to go. But I wanted to wait for Gale to come back, even though I kept telling myself he was probably gone."

"Your cousin agreed to leave Howe's with us because he wanted to find you." Clementine said.

"Really?" Rowan's eyes widened.

"Does that surprise you or somethin'?" Luke asked.

She shrugged and bit her lip. "I don't know. Kinda."  _Yes._

"I just wanted to know what your deal was, I'm not saying I don't get it, it's not like I've never lied before." Luke confessed, frowning.

"Why'd you do it?" Rowan asked.

"To protect a friend."

"And it didn't work." She stated.

"No." Clementine answered for him, clutching her elbow. "It didn't."

"I was afraid you two were like her, at first." Rowan admitted.

"Who, Jane?" Luke asked, confused.

She nodded.

"She's not bad!" Clementine said. "She came back to save m-...us."

"What if she leaves again?" Rowan wondered, asking only to see what the girl would say and not because she actually cared.

"I don't...she won't." Clementine argued, frowning. "She promised." The baby began to whimper.

"Let me see him, Clem." Luke perked up, eager to change the subject again as the girl passed off the baby to him. "Rebecca didn't even get to choose a name..."

"We should have stayed behind for Rebecca." Clementine said miserably. "You were right. I just agreed with Kenny because I didn't want to make him mad again."

"I wanted to leave to find Arvo, so it's my fault too." Rowan added, glancing at the boy who was now slumped against a tree trunk while Jane, Mike, and Kenny argued over him.  _And now he wants nothing to do with me._

"I'm going to do something different this time, and I'll start with AJ, I'm going to be a better friend to him."

"AJ?" Clementine raised an eyebrow.

"Alvin Junior. Rebecca mentioned that name, but she never made it official." Luke grinned. "It's like Bonnie said, she would have wanted me to take care of him."

"What did I say, now?" Bonnie inquired as she walked up with a blue rag in her hand. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Luke said.

"We're talking about...regrets and stuff, I guess." Clementine informed her, and Luke glared at the girl.

"Well, there sure are enough of those to go around." Bonnie commented dryly.

"And baby names!" She added brightly.

"So you've picked a name for him?" Bonnie asked, waiting for Clem's nod before asking, "Well? What is it?"

"AJ. After Alvin."

The redhead smiled kindly. "That's a good name. Clem, can you change Kenny's bandage? He doesn't trust me to do it, but he wants to see AJ and he knows you so I thought you could do it."

"Sure." Clementine glanced towards Kenny, sighing.

* * *

It was nearly dark by the time they came up over the hill, and Arvo was still waiting for the group to drop the act and stop treating Rowan like a prisoner. By now they should have, but the eye-patch man was still pressing a gun into her back and had threatened to kill her at least once every hour. Arvo looked down at the power station below, recognizing it as the one he'd passed plenty of times, but never bothered to actually explore.

"Is that it? I asked you a goddamn question!"

"It? It what?" Arvo instinctively moved to place his hands in his pockets, but the rope binding his wrists prevented him from doing so. He shrunk under the man's gaze, knowing he wouldn't be patient.

"The place you're fucking taking us!" The man snarled. Arvo recoiled when he took his gun off of Rowan and pointed it directly at him while going off on another tirade.

They were all screaming at each other again and he couldn't understand a thing. Arvo closed his eyes and tried to block out the noise.

"Just give him a minute." Rowan stuttered uncertainly once everyone calmed down.

"Was I fucking talking to you, pinko?"

"...What?" Rowan narrowed her eyes in confusion.

"Shut up, Kenny." The short haired woman dismissed him with a roll of her eyes. "Are we going to check this place out or what?"

"Fine." He handed the baby to Clementine and began his descent down the hill, following the other woman.

As Arvo watched the pair go, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For just once today, he didn't have to fear getting his head blown off or worry about another one of her possible schemes, even if it was for five minutes. None of the people who stayed behind were particularly cruel or threatening, with the exception of the girl. If she was low enough to murder a severely injured woman, who knew what else she was capable of. He stared at them, all sitting around a log cooing over the baby.

"Arvo?" Rowan called his name softly.

When he faced her, she turned away as if he were about to hit her.  _"I'm not going to hurt you."_  Arvo told her. He didn't want to, and even if he did, his hands were bound. Rowan was in the same exact position he was, he could see that now. He didn't know why she had been traveling with those people, but it was clear she wasn't  _with_ them.  _I couldn't save Natasha either. I have no right to be mad at her._

"I'm sorry." Rowan said.

He nodded and looked back down at the valley, focusing on the outlines of Jane and Kenny as they slipped through the tear in the gate. Rowan stood so close he could feel her shoulder brushing up against his own. "Their fault.  _Not ours._ "

* * *

Everyone was laughing and joking, the joy on their faces illuminated by the glow of the embers as they made toasts and passed a bottle of rum around. Kenny had tied them in a position that made it very easy to turn their heads and see what they were missing, and there was no way that this arrangement wasn't intentional. It was clear Arvo wasn't holding back his sorrow anymore, choking and shivering as he tried to force all his grief out.

The warmth of the fire could only reach so far, and it did not extend its goodwill to them. Rowan wanted to be there with the others; drawn to the relaxed atmosphere, but her place was here, out in the cold with Arvo and his misery.

They were tied to the cold metal structure so tightly with the rope that she could feel Arvo's fingers brushing up against her own. The last time she had tried to touch him he had rejected her, but this was different. If she didn't do this their fingers would probably fall off, he had to understand that. She took hold of his hands, rubbing them to induce some warmth, and he did not pull away from her touch and instead returned the gesture and entwined their fingers together.

* * *

_Killing him will only help him._ Vitali's words rang in his mind now, leaving Arvo to wonder why the man didn't just shoot him. Maybe he wanted him to suffer, since he had despised him so damn much.  _"Natasha, please. Please, I'm so sorry. Come back to me, I don't want this."_ He cried inconsolably for her anyway even though he knew Natasha was never coming back and had died hating him. This was all wrong, the only thing he wanted was to keep her alive, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, muffled by the chatter of contentment by the fire.  _Nobody left on this earth cares for me. I'm all alone._

He detected the distinct sound of footsteps crunching the snow, and though it felt like his skull was made of lead, he managed to lift his head and found himself face to face with his sister's murderer. The little girl was staring at him with pity in her amber eyes, and she was holding a bottle of alcohol. He raised an eyebrow, struggling to contain himself in front of the one who had taken everything from him. She had even stolen the chance to apologize and say goodbye, but if he didn't stay calm, Kenny would hurt him.

"I'm sorry about your sister."

It felt as if she had smashed the bottle over his head. What kind of sick joke was this? Killing the only person he cared about wasn't enough, and now she comes over here just to mock him? Fresh, angry tears began streaming down his face.  _She's just trying to get a rise out of you._

"Leave me alone, please." He stammered, astonished at how well he was able to remain composed.

"Do you want some?" Clementine said, and he was ready to scream, pausing when he realized that she was no longer talking to him, but to Rowan instead.

"Sure." Rowan replied, and he glared at the metal beam they were tied to, blocking him from seeing her face. Why was she still trying to make friends with these bastards, what have they done for her? When she had finished drinking, Clementine left, and he tilted his head to the side and out of the way of the beam so he could glower openly at her.

"We have to be nice to them." Rowan argued once she noticed him. "I know you don't want to, but please try."

His expression did not change.

"They'll let us go once you take them to your house, and then we never have to see them again. But Kenny will hurt us if you don't cooperate more. You have to."

"I am _trying!_ " He hissed. That man spoke so fast and was too irritable, what was he supposed to do?

She whimpered. "I don't want Kenny to hurt you anymore."

"He find any reason." Arvo retorted. "All of them would."

"They aren't all terrible people. Luke and Clementine are nice."

All the fury he had tried to hard to shove down came out at the mention of the murderer's name.  _"What the fuck is wrong with you!?"_  Being kind must have meant 'Hadn't tried to kill me yet.' in her eyes.

"What?" Rowan whispered, startled.

"She kill Natasha.  _How could you say she is kind!?"_

"Natasha turned, Arvo. After Kenny shot her, she turned. I saw it."

Turned? He couldn't believe that, he couldn't. It had only been a minute, there was no way Natasha had turned that fast, nobody he knew turned that fast. He saved her, he saw her get up and try to crawl to safety, she had been so close before she had been shot. Rowan must have been mistaken, there was no other option. "You...no no no. _No. You are wrong._ She was alive."

"No she wasn't, I swear. She would have bit Clem-"

_"Liar!"_ He screeched, wrenching his fingers away from her own and curling them into fists. She was wrong, or just making excuses for these people again.

"Why were you with them?" Arvo asked, breaking into a fit of coughs, his throat injured from shouting. His voice cracked, and he continued slowly, struggling to keep his sentences exclusively in English, "I waited, why were you not there?"

"I was searching for my cousin." She said in a small voice. "And they knew him. He's dead." Her lip trembled. "I couldn't find you."

_Oh._ Arvo had thought that had been the case all along, but she sounded so lost actually saying so. " _Ryabina..._ " He began, unsure of what to say to her when he didn't know what to tell himself.

"Don't talk to me." She snapped.

* * *

Arvo hadn't said a word since she had rebuked him and she regretting doing so in the first place, but the looming threat of frostbite was enough to bring their hands together again. With the way things were, she might as well have been alone.  _Where am I going to go after this all ends? What am I going to do?_ These questions kept sticking in her mind even though she knew there was nothing she could do right now but serve her sentence; wander through the bleak woods with a gun to her back until these people got what they wanted and moved on. Having a predetermined direction was the sole comfort out of all this, at least she was going somewhere, and as long as she didn't get killed on the way there, it would be alright. For now.

Someone else was coming over to them. Rowan stopped focusing on the post in front of her and turned to see Mike, who had approached in a manner similar to Clementine, bottle in his hand and all.

"Hey-"

"Leave me alone!" Arvo shouted, loud enough to stun everyone into silence. Rowan gasped at his outburst, never expecting him to be that loud.

Mike tried to fill the gap with rushed apologies, slowly backing away.

"Leave me al-" The pistol rained down on his head with a sickening crack. Rowan screamed and turned away, half-expecting to be hit as well. Arvo flinched when Kenny raised the pistol a second time, but was still unable to avoid a second blow to the head; the man nearly tried to hit him again before Mike ripped him off.

Rowan could feel a weight dragging her down from the other side of the beam and she realized that Arvo was no longer conscious, or worse, dead. She lowered herself onto the ground with him to decrease the pressure of the dead weight. She was close enough to feel his shallow breath on her face, a fresh line of blood was beginning to trickle from the new wound on the side of his head.  _Thank God that didn't kill him_.

"I...I didn't want him hurting anybody." Kenny sputtered, trying to silence the disapproval from the others.

"You were just looking for an excuse." Rowan said, loud enough for them to hear, but they had already begun fighting. She tried to calm the violent shivers that wracked her body and hoped they weren't paying attention to her, thinking that maybe they'd believe she fainted too and leave her alone.  _Close your eyes and they'll all go away. Just close your eyes._

* * *

When she woke, it was still dark out, the moon and dying fire were the only sources of light. The first thing she saw when her eyes adjusted were her unbound wrists. The second; Arvo still curled up on the floor with a nasty bruise on the side of his head, dried blood crusted around it. She sat up and stretched, then quickly tallied up the sleeping bodies around the fire.  _Only five._ She scanned the area, locating Mike by the fence.

Rowan took the hood of Arvo's jacket and pulled it up over him to protect his head from the cold, and then tucked his hands into his pockets. She stood up and nearly toppled to the floor from the aching pain in her knees. Both of her legs felt like stone but she still managed to walk forward, even though it seemed as if Mike was miles away.

"You're not like him. You're not." He repeated, and then began muttering more words Rowan couldn't decipher.

"Uh...hi?" She greeted him carefully, trying not to come off as too awkward. Mike had been the most vocal about defending them, but she was still wary, maybe he would react badly to seeing her. But if he had been the one who had untied her, that wouldn't have made any sense.  _What is going on?_ Nobody else was awake, it had to have been him.

He turned around, startled for only a moment. "Sorry!"

"F-for what?"

"I talk to myself sometimes, kinda." He told her.

"Oh. That's fine." She laughed, finding it amusing that he apologized for something so trivial. "...Why'd you untie me?" Rowan asked, rubbing her wrists.

"I don't think having you guys tied up every second is necessary. Kenny won't like it but he's not awake right now." Mike shrugged. "The first time I met him he tried picking a fight with me for no goddamn reason, so try to keep it down. I don't want him waking up and giving me hell for this."

"I won't, sorry." She said, softer this time. "How long have you been with these people?"

"A few days, we all met at Carver's place, and they started searching for ways to escape on the first damn day. It never would have worked without Clem. Why the hell Kenny sent the kid to do all the dangerous shit, I'll never know. He's lucky Carver didn't find out, he would have killed her considering what he did to Kenny's face."  _So that's what happened to his eye. Damn._

"Jane seems to think she can take care of herself. Or maybe not, considering she came back." Rowan replied.

"Bonnie always thought Jane would take off, I didn't get what she meant at the time but I guess she was right. Hell, she might leave again." Mike looked back out towards the fence. "I wouldn't blame her, honestly."

"Did they hurt Gale too, when they brought him in?" She asked tentatively, trying to convince herself that she did want to know the answer, because the only alternative would be having it eat away at her for the rest of her life while she tried to convince herself not to think about it.

"As far as I know, no. They just threw him in the pen. He didn't talk much."  _Sounds like him._

"...But they said he didn't make it. W-what happened?"

"I think he bumped into one of the walkers and they got him. We covered ourselves in walker guts and tried to walk through the herd, he thought it wasn't going to work. It's how Sarah lost her dad, poor kid. And I was sitting over there joking about Jane and Luke earlier...man I feel like an asshole." He realized.

Rowan just stared at her feet.

"He wanted me to tell you he's sorry. If we ever met up with you again, I mean. He said you'd know what I'm talking about."

"I do, yeah." Rowan said, still staring at the ground. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I don't have anything against you, you helped us when we needed a lot of it. I was a bandit once, with my older brother and a couple of other people. We hurt a lot of people who needed help, and I'm sick of that shit. There's no need for Kenny to keep acting the way he has been."

"What happened to him? Your brother, I mean?" She asked, hoping he wouldn't think of her question as too invasive.

"I don't know, I left before things got any worse. I couldn't take that kind of life anymore, I know he's my damn family but-"

"It's okay. Just because he's related to you doesn't mean a-anything." She coughed. "I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to leave if I were you."

Mike glanced at the sleeping figures around the fire nervously. "Look, I just better tie you guys up again, okay?"

"Alright." She agreed, heading back towards the post just as Arvo began to stir.

_"U menya bolit golova."_ He moaned, clutching his head in agony.

"Be quiet!" Mike hissed.

_"Natasha, pomogi mne."_ Arvo whimpered, though softer that time.

Rowan dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, and he put one arm around her in return and kept the other on his head. "We're gonna get out of this eventually, I promise." She whispered. "Just hold on."


	6. Chapter 6

"There." Arvo gestured towards the half-built house.

"You call that piece of shit a house?" Kenny said, which only exacerbated his headache.

"Who cares about the house, we need to get across that lake before walkers show up." Jane snapped.

"We could go around, maybe." Bonnie suggested.

"Take longer. Ice okay."

"Bullshit. Don't tell me you actually believe this asshole?" Kenny turned around to face the rest of the group. "He's fucking with us, like he's been the whole time! We aren't going out there."

"Ice okay." Arvo repeated forcefully, wanting to get these people to the supplies as fast as he could so this violent man would finally be out of his life forever. His group had walked across the lake before and the temperature was even lower today than it was yesterday. If anything it should be stronger, but there was no way for him to properly convey that to them.

"I can be front." He offered, but not even Rowan moved closer to the edge of the shore.

"I don't know..." She murmured, staring at the shore warily. "Let's go around-"

"Going around ain't an option anymore!" Bonnie reported from the back of the group, pointing towards walkers that had begun to pour from the woods. Arvo began to inch towards the lake, knowing what would happen if the dead caught up to them while they were still talking.

"We gotta do somethin' quick." Luke said urgently. "When Clem shot the walker it woke up the rest of them!"

"Going across is the only way!" Clementine said.

"Can you even make it with your leg like that?" Mike asked Luke.

"I'll be fine, I don't got much of a choice." He replied.

"If we spread out, it'll work. Hurry up!" Jane barked. "Let's go!"

Kenny pulled Arvo back and spun him around to face him, staring at him with his one good eye. He was so close that he could feel the man's hot breath on his skin. "Listen to me, Ruskie. If you're lying, then I'll put a bullet in her skull." Kenny pointed at Rowan, as if who he was referring to wasn't already abundantly clear.

As soon as Kenny said those words, Arvo wanted to wrap his hands around his neck and choke him until he was dead, but he had already shoved him out onto the ice before he could verbalize his fury.

* * *

"We're gonna be fine." Luke reassured her. "We'll make it."

Everyone else had passed by them, eager to get away from the walkers. Rowan glanced towards the woods just as one had lost its footing and tumbled down the slope. She walked onto the ice, expecting to hear a loud crack as soon as she put her foot down, but it felt solid and sounded like she was walking across a kitchen floor.  _Move._

"The walkers are after us!" Jane reported when they were nearly half-way across.

"Stay with us!" Kenny shouted at Arvo, who had begun to walk faster upon noticing the walkers.

Two of them fell through the ice and he took off running, hopping as fast as he could across the slippery terrain, Kenny chasing after him, and Mike presumably chasing after Kenny. Rowan watched, wishing he'd make it onto solid ground but knowing it was more likely that he'd fall in. She wanted to tell him to stop, but it wouldn't have made a difference.

Arvo fell through only a few meters from the shore. Her breath caught in her throat when Kenny caught up with him, and she thought for a second that he'd do something horrible, like stomp on him while he was still scrabbling to crawl out of the hole.  _Maybe that's what he had said to him before, that he'd drown him if he could._  Now he had that chance, but Kenny hoisted him out of the water and pushed him towards land.

"At least they made it." Jane said as Mike joined Kenny and Arvo at the other end.

"If we ran for it, do you think it'd work?" Clementine asked, peering down at a tiny crack she had made.

"No." Jane said. "Keep walking."

Rowan studied the small fracture in the ice, gaze sweeping across the lake and settling on Luke, who was trying to balance on two pieces of ice separated by a rift so wide that the water between them was visible. The others had noticed too, judging by Bonnie's startled gasp.

"Nobody move." Luke said.

"Get rid of the gun, it's too heavy." Jane advised.

"What do you want me to do? Throw it?" Luke replied indignantly. "I can get out, just give me-" The ice under his bad leg gave in and he fell forward, hands slamming on the ground.

"The walkers are coming! You need help Luke!" Clementine cried out, and bent her knees as if she were preparing to go up to him.

"Get him Clem, you're light!" Bonnie encouraged as she took out her gun.

"Don't tell her that!" Luke exclaimed. "Bonnie, Clem, take out your gun and shoot those walkers. Rowan, j-just stay there. Don't move."

The girl was conflicted, nervously looking back and forth at Bonnie and Luke as they shouted contradictory commands at her. Luke was trying to pull his leg up out of the water even faster to spare her the choice. Rowan stayed still and silent, afraid that something as simple as shifting her weight or opening her mouth would weaken the ice further. Clementine pulled her gun out and shot a walker that was only a couple feet away from Luke and the body crashed to the ground. She continued to shoot while Luke babbled words of gratitude.

"There's too many, I'm coming to get you!" Bonnie said after firing a few rounds.

_"Rowan, prishli syuda pryamo seychas! Prosto ostav'te eto, davay!"_ Arvo called, and Rowan turned her head slowly, still fearing falling through. Kenny shoved him to the ground again and kicked him, but he did not quiet down.  _"Ne umeret' za nikh! Idi syuda!"_

Clementine's bullets had hardly made a dent in the wall of walkers that kept lurching closer.

"Don't die for me, don't come any closer!" Luke begged. "Go back."

"I can save you!" Bonnie said as she crept closer, despite the fact that the ice was beginning to give out. "Nobody is going to die because of you, hold on!"

"No. No, you can't. Nick died because of my lies, Sarah died and I stood by while it happened." He began rattling off more names, as quickly as he could. "Pete, Carlos, Alvin, Rebecca... _all_ my friends are dead and I won't let it happen to you. Nobody has to die because of me anymore."

Bonnie stopped, stunned by his words. "Shut the fuck up!" She exclaimed suddenly. "Quit tryin' to play the fucking hero for once, you ain't that good at it."

_He's giving up._ She realized in horror as Luke began to loosen his grip on the ice.

"Don't do this! Why won't you ever let me help you?!" Bonnie cried.

"Bonnie, just go back." Luke told her.

"I'm out of ammo!" Clementine reported as she began to back away.

The five seconds between Bonnie's pause and Clementine's cry of anguish was all the time it took for the walkers to finally break the ice completely, submerging both Luke and Bonnie into the water. They did not resurface.

Clementine ran closer to the hole in the ice, and for a brief moment Rowan thought she was going to throw herself in after them, but the girl swerved suddenly, as if she were following something. Rowan noticed a silhouette moving under the ice and realized that it was Bonnie, but Luke was not beside her. Clementine got to her knees and began slamming the ground with her gun.

"It's too late, stop!" Rowan begged. "Clem, please!"

Everyone else was screaming at her to stop, but Clementine didn't listen and only hit down harder and harder, her only goal was getting Bonnie out from under the ice.

Rowan could feel the ground weakening under her feet, the tips of her shoes were beginning to dampen.  _It's already sinking._  Another loud crack, and she was under the frigid water instantly. She stretched her arm upwards, hoping to find an opening, but her hand was blocked by the immense ice. Rowan began to pound on it immediately, but it was so cold she could hardly clench her fist anymore.

She angled herself downwards and kicked the ice while frantically searching for an alternate way out. Clementine was off to her right, flailing helplessly. An arm reached for the girl and clenched her jacket, pulling her up and out of the water. Rowan abandoned her place and moved to where Clementine had been, using the ice to push herself along. She burst out of the water and pulled herself up, gasping for breath as she lay there, waiting for someone to help her. Nobody came.

"Get up kid. Come on." Bonnie said to her, sparing a moment only to speak to her before sprinting across the lake to the house.

* * *

"We tried to help him, but he just, he didn't  _want_...Oh, God!" Bonnie covered her face with her hands, choking up before she could even finish her sentence.

Arvo didn't give a damn about the man who had drowned or that the little girl had almost died with him. As long as someone got a fire started so Rowan would not die of hypothermia, then he didn't care. He glared at Clementine, angry that she purposely broke the ice and almost got her killed.

"Okay?" He asked her, even though he knew she wasn't and that there wasn't anything he could do about it.

"Y-yeah." Rowan said faintly, shivering violently.

Mike was trying to start a fire in Jane's absence, but Arvo kept his eyes on Kenny, who was now furiously pacing. Arvo had not forgotten his threat towards Rowan, and his nervousness grew as he watched the man dart back and forth.

"This is all your fucking fault!" Kenny exclaimed, stepping towards him as if he were about to punch him.

"Don't, man." Mike warned, too focused on trying to kindle a fire to step in like he usually did.

Arvo's natural reaction was to cower, and he did, hoping Kenny would be too busy shouting at him to even remember Rowan was in the room.

"He said the ice was safe and fucking look." He made a sweeping motion of his arm over Bonnie, Clementine, and Rowan. "Luke drowned! They probably don't even have the damn supplies, it's all bullshit!"

"It wasn't Arvo's fault, there were too many walkers!" Clementine said. "S-stop blaming him for everything."

Kenny ignored her and pointed at Rowan. "We should throw herout!"

"How is that fair?" Mike snapped as the fire finally started to grow. He stood up.

"One of his for one of ours." The man demanded.

"Shut up." Rowan said coldly. Her entire body was trembling, but with the glint in her eye he couldn't tell if she was shaking with rage or shivering. They were all staring at her now, eyes wide with surprise.

"What?"

"Shut the  _fuck_  up." She repeated, staring him right in the eye. "I didn't do anything wrong. You don't give a shit about Luke, you're just looking for a reason to kill me!"

Arvo watched Kenny's right fist clench and left hand reach for his gun, not knowing if the man was going to shoot or punch her. He did the only thing he could and crashed into Kenny before the man could make up his mind, knocking him off balance and sending his own glasses flying.  _"Don't touch her, bastard!"_

Kenny latched onto the hood of his jacket and slammed him onto his back. Arvo lifted his arms in a vain attempt at protecting his face from the man's fists, but the hits kept coming until the taste of his own blood in his mouth was so overwhelming he nearly choked on it.

"Fuck you!" He snarled in between blows, which only prompted the man to hit him more.

"Commie piece of shit!" The man spit back.

"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!"

Kenny finally stopped, and when Arvo opened a swelling eye he saw the face of a guilty, remorseful man looking down at him, and knew that he would never be the one to cause that reaction.

That was when he saw Clementine, a thin trail of blood trickling from a fresh bruise on her lip. She was the one who had stopped the man from beating him to death.  _Why?_

"What did you do to him!?" Jane asked angrily, throwing a familiar green bag down next to him. "He wasn't lying!"

Kenny glanced at the bag, and Arvo saw a flicker of surprise, quickly replaced by anger. "How is a can of chili going to help a baby?"

"How is beating a kid to death going to help  _anyone_!?" She retorted.

"I'm tying them up." Kenny declared.

"Burn in hell." Rowan muttered, slouching with exhaustion.

"Not her, she needs to stay by the fire."

"Fine." The man grabbed his arm and jerked him to his feet. He had repaid for his part in the gun fight, gave these people the damn food and this man still found fault with him no matter what he did.  _Fuck you._

* * *

After all Kenny had done to them, none of these people had bothered to suggest that maybe  _he_  was the dangerous one. All they did was yell at him until he stopped, but the damage had already been done, just like every other time before. Arvo was tied to a beam, lip split open and bloody bruises all over his face, but at least he was alive. Rowan felt tears pricking her eyes, realizing how close she had came to getting shot again. She couldn't accept waiting around to die, not anymore. Her body had grown so weak in the past ten minutes that she couldn't even find the strength to stand up, but she knew she had to get out.

"Why does Arvo keep glaring at me?" Clementine asked quietly, the blood on her lip beginning to dry.

Rowan glanced at Arvo again, his eyes closed as if he were sleeping, or at least trying to. She remembered how angry he had been last night, completely convinced that Clementine had shot his sister while she was alive. Now it seemed as if they had much bigger things to worry about. "He thinks you murdered Natasha, he doesn't know she had turned."

"Oh." Clementine said, a mixture of shock and sadness in her voice. She looked as if she wanted to get up and set the record straight right that second, but if Clementine's reaction to falling into the lake was anything like her own, the girl would be too exhausted.

Rowan laid down, wishing her backpack wasn't so far away so she could have something that resembled a pillow. She knew Mike would take care of Arvo, so she closed her eyes and let the fire take care of her.

* * *

Mike had been pacing for a solid half-hour, talking to himself at such a rapid pace that Arvo couldn't understand a word of his garbled speech. He had spent that half-hour watching the man dart back and forth throughout the house, trying to distract himself from the fact that his entire face was practically throbbing.

He came to a stop and peered at Kenny, and then walked up to Arvo. "He's asleep, I'll get something to clean you up."

"Thank you." Arvo replied, grateful for all of the times Mike had defended him.  _Why is he so afraid of that man? He is much stronger and taller than him._ Even without his hands tied, Arvo knew he would have lost that fight. He was too weak to harbor such a quick temper, he shouldn't have pushed Kenny further after he nearly murdered Rowan, but he couldn't help himself.

Mike returned, pouring some disinfectant into a cloth. The man leaned down to examine his injuries and began to clean his face, Arvo drawing back from the sting.

"He coulda killed you. I'm getting sick of this shit."

"Hurt him bad." Arvo responded.  _Kill him._

"I'd rather get out of here before things have to come to that."

"You leaving?"

"Maybe. I've been thinking about it. Bonnie too. Don't know where we're gonna go, just away from here."

Mike was talking quickly again, but Arvo understood enough. "Take us too. Please."

"I don't even know how we're gonna do it yet, okay? But if we do, we'll take you. Hang in there." Mike pulled his glasses out of his hoodie pocket and put them on Arvo's face. "Here. You dropped these."

Arvo grinned. "Thank you."

* * *

Rowan opened her eyes and sat up cautiously, trying to remember where she was. It felt like she was back at the observation deck, alone in the dark. She had to have been asleep for hours, the sun was nearly setting at this point. The first thing she noticed upon looking around the room was that Kenny was not in it. Now was her chance to untie Arvo and go.

She stood up, still somewhat disoriented but much stronger than she had been previously.  _The air will be cold enough to wake me._

"Sit down for a second." A voice advised from behind her. "You don't look good."

Rowan whirled around, startled. When she realized it was only Jane she sighed. "I don't have time to sit, I'm going."

"What?" Jane scoffed.

"I want to leave, now."

"You can't-"

"You got the food what else do you want!?" She shouted. "You can't keep us here!"

"Are you fucking crazy? Do you think Kenny is just going to let you walk out of here right this second? Sit down." Jane demanded.

Rowan glared at the woman but obeyed her request. She picked at her fingernails, unsure of what to do now that she was awake and knew that if she tried to leave, Jane would stop her.

"I can't believe Luke's gone." Jane said to Clementine, who hadn't spoken since waking.

"He wanted to die." Clementine whispered in disbelief, as if it was dawning on her for the first time. "That's what he told Bonnie, he thought he didn't deserve to live."

"I know." Jane replied. "I'm never going to get used to this shit. I keep assuming I will and I never do."

_I don't want to feel so weighted down with guilt that I feel the need to die for it._ She realized.  _I'm not going to be like him._

Kenny walked into the room, interrupting their conversation. "Why isn't she tied up?" Rowan looked to the side and away from the accusatory finger pointed at her.

"I'm watching her, it's fine. What do you want?"

"I wasn't talking to you. I need Clem's help with the truck."

"Really?  _Now?_ " Clementine protested, even though it was clear she did not to leave, she begrudgingly followed the man outside.

As soon as she was gone, Jane took her arm and pulled her into the next room. "You want to leave? Just go, I won't tell anyone."

"But Arvo is still tied up, I have to get him."

Jane sighed as if Rowan had told her a bad joke. "Look. That kid's a wreck, you don't need him. Being with him might seem better than being alone when you don't have any better options, but trust me, it's not."

"I can't leave him here! Kenny will murder him. You might be fine with leaving people to die when it's convenient for you, but I'm not! Arvo saved my life, I'm not going to repay him by leaving him behind to die." She backed away from the backpack the woman was trying to hand her as if it were poisonous.

"I'm trying to help you!" Jane said.

"I don't need your help!" Rowan retorted, stepping around the woman to sit by the window.  _I'll find my own way._

* * *

The room felt very empty now that he was the only one there. Arvo could hear Jane and Rowan talking but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Though Mike had cleaned up his face he was still in pain, even his ribs were sore from when the man's knees dug into his sides.

His group would have all been sitting at the fireplace around this time, talking about how much they missed home, the one thing they all had in common. No matter how many times he cursed Buricko and Vitali and wished them to death, he never actually meant any of it. They were obnoxious and reckless, but he never wanted them to die like that, he just wanted to get away, and now they were dead and he was back at square one with nothing left.

He heard footsteps and knew someone was walking towards him. Arvo turned his head to see Clementine standing nearby, keeping a safe distance as if he were a rabid dog on a leash.

"I have to tell you something." Clementine said.

"Why?" Arvo asked, voice low and utterly defeated. Maybe she had come to finish what Kenny had started, and he realized that he honestly wouldn't care if she did, but he wanted answers first. "Kill Natasha. Why?"  _Why are you, a murderer, being nice to me? Why did you let me keep the medicine, why did you defend me from that man and yet kill my sister?_

"Your sister was already dead, Arvo. She turned." She said. "...That's what I wanted to tell you."

He shook his head on impulse.

"Why would I do that!?" She asked. "Jane tried to make me steal from you but I didn't even do that, so why would I murder someone for no reason? I don't  _like_  hurting people!"

Arvo stayed silent as the girl repeated back all the questions he had been wondering himself. Rowan had told him the same exact thing, that his sister had turned. He didn't want to accept that Natasha never had a chance, that her life was already over as soon as the bullet tore through her chest and that his efforts to save her meant nothing all along. But he had to.  _Her behavior doesn't make any sense for a murderer because she isn't a murderer._

"I know you didn't want anyone to die, and I didn't either!" Clementine said. "Your sister turned. Please believe me."

"I know..." Arvo whispered to himself. Natasha was still dead, her words didn't change that. But this girl wasn't a killer. "I know." He repeated, louder this time, disgusted with himself for hating an innocent when the man who had threatened him and nearly beat him to death was the real culprit.

"I wish we could have met differently, Clementine." He told her. "Thank you for being kind."

"I wish we had never met at all." Clementine said, sitting down across from him. "I'm sorry I didn't stop Jane in time. I just wanted to talk to you and she said it was a good idea, but then she didn't follow the plan at all. I don't know what happened."

"She lie to you."

"She doesn't listen to me. Nobody does."

"Then is not your fault. They put you in these  _situations,_ yes?"

"Yeah, but they help me sometimes. And they both scare me too, sometimes. I don't know what to do." She admitted quietly.

"I know this feeling. I thought to shoot when I first saw you. I could not. Buricko and Vitali always say not to be a-a  _coward._ To them, that means be  _cruel._ " Arvo frowned.  _Not following their advice hasn't helped me any, but it didn't do them any favors either._

"You don't have to be mean to be brave. All the bravest people I knew weren't mean just because they could."

"Then you are brave too." He smiled.

Clementine jumped up at the sound of the truck starting, the truck that had belonged to his people. Arvo had spent more hours than he could count working on that truck with Vitali, and they almost had it fixed. But he supposed Kenny would take that too, like he had taken everything else from him. Jane ran for the back-door and Clementine chased after her, telling him that she'd be back soon.

_She's braver than you will ever be._ And these people would keep making her do foolish and treacherous things; lie and refuse to listen, all under the guise of making her stronger or claiming that they cared.  _She'll end up like me, or worse if she stays with them._

* * *

Rowan watched the truck through the window, naming off each person until they were all accounted for. Everyone was out of the house. She scooped up her backpack and rushed over to Arvo, trying to ignore her pounding heart. Rowan began to loosen the knot of rope.

"What?  _Chto ty delayesh'?"  
_  
 _What are you doing._ She knew that phrase. "I'm getting us out of here before they come back inside."

"No, no no no do not. He will kill us."

"Not if we're quick." Rowan replied. "We can go out the front door."

" _Sadit'sya."_ He said, glaring. "I am not fast."

"Arvo, please." She said, giving up and retying the knot the best she could, figuring they had already missed their chance.

"I want to go. But this plan, not so good."

She put her backpack into the other room right where Jane had left it from before and sat next to Arvo. "Happy now?"

"Not really, no."

_Me neither._ Rowan moved closer to him and wrapped her arm around his waist. "I'm not gonna leave you."

"Good." He leaned closer and put his head on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" She asked, bewildered.

"Clementine. Natasha...You were right. I am sorry for not believing you."

"It's alright." She replied, relieved to hear that he had straightened things out with her.

The sensation of his breath on her neck felt warmer than the fireplace, the feel of his head resting on her shoulder brought her more comfort than being in a group again. When had she started mistaking basic human decency for kindness? These people only saw Kenny's behavior as an nuisance, which was easy when their lives weren't under constant threat from his temper. And it would stay like that until they'd finally get to questioning when he'd turn on them, and considering all the arguing coming from outside, they were beginning to do just that.

* * *

Everyone but Kenny stormed into the house, voicing their various grievances all at once.

"Kenny is being fucking ridiculous!" Mike declared. "I'm done, seriously. Fuck it."

"You're just now realizing this? Come on, Clem." Jane said, venturing into the other room while Clementine followed her.

"What happened?" Rowan asked.

"Kenny wants to look for Wellington." Bonnie told her.

Arvo raised an eyebrow. "What is that?"

"It's a myth, that's what it is." Mike said. "It's fucking freezing out and he still wants to go look for this place. There's hardly any formula left for AJ, so even if Wellington exists, the chance of us actually making it there without that kid dying first is pretty damn slim."

"Shooting for Wellington ain't a bad idea, but not in this weather when we still haven't the foggiest idea of where it's even at." Bonnie said.

"Bonnie, we gotta go." Mike said, resigned. "I know you wanted to make this work, but it ain't fucking working. We talked about this."

"I know." She sighed.

Arvo perked up at the mention of them leaving. "Us too? Please?"

"Please take us with you, wherever you're going. We have nowhere else to go." Rowan pleaded alongside him.

"We're gonna take you both...If you want to come." Mike told her.

"Of course we do! Thank you, oh God, thank you." She said, laughing in relief. "...Where are you going?"

"We don't know where to go yet, all we need to focus on right now is getting away. Jane wanted to go back to Howe's, but that's risky too, the place could be overrun. She'll probably try to convince us otherwise. She's better off on her own as far as I'm concerned."

"We're taking the truck, we've got to. Leaving on foot is a death sentence and if we tell Kenny we're not going with him, who knows how the hell he'd react. Bonnie's going to take watch and then wake the rest of us up, we'll take a bag of food and leave the other for them, then we get the hell out." Mike explained.

Tears of joy began to well up in his eyes. He was getting out of here. All his spite towards Kenny was forgotten at the prospect of leaving him behind forever. He and Rowan would be safe with them. Arvo thought of Clementine, remembering that if she stayed here, she wouldn't be safe. "Clementine too?" He asked, wondering if they had already talked to her.

"What if she tells Kenny?" Mike asked, glancing back towards the room Jane and Clementine went in.

_So they have not talked to her._ Her ratting them out was a possibility, sure. But she said she was afraid of Jane and Kenny, she had told him herself.

"There's no way to know for sure." Bonnie replied. "But we can't leave her or AJ here with him. I let good people die when I helped us escape from Howe's, I can't be a part of something like that again. It would be wrong to leave them out."

"Kenny isn't going to kill  _them!_ " Mike exclaimed. "It's us I'm worried about. You know he'd go to the ends of the earth to protect those kids."

"I know, I know." Bonnie said. "But dragging them up north looking for a place that doesn't even exist might as well be a death sentence, but since we can't make Kenny see that, there's no other choice."

"Bonnie's right, we have to take a chance. Be vague. Don't tell her the specifics, only that we're leaving tonight and she can come if she wants." Rowan offered.

Mike held up his hands in defeat. "Yeah, you guys are right. We'll take them."

Bonnie smiled at Rowan's suggestion. "That might actually work. But if it turns out that she wants to stay with Kenny and Jane, then we'll have to let her. If we make a big fuss over this, then those two might catch on and it'll be ruined."

"We just have to get Clem on board with it, and everything will work out fine. We got this." Mike said, sure of himself.

_She'll be brave enough to leave, she knows it's dangerous to stay with them._ Arvo was sure of it.


	7. Chapter 7

Arvo was jostled out of his sleep by a hand on his shoulder. He opened a tired eye to see Clementine whispering his name, trying to wake him with as little noise as possible. As soon as she saw that he was conscious, Clem moved over to Rowan and began to do the same until she stirred.

"Time to go." The girl said, glancing back at Kenny and Jane uncertainly, their sleeping figures made visible by the moonlight shining through the window. Bonnie was carefully lifting a bag of food, trying not to rattle the cans around as she did so, while Mike stood by the door watching them with nervous eyes, AJ sleeping peacefully in the crook of his arm.

Once Clementine cut their ropes, she gave the knife to Rowan. Arvo squinted at it in confusion until he realized that Clementine had used Rowan's knife to free them. Rowan lifted her backpack up around her shoulders, but not before taking out two guns and handing one to Arvo.

The feel of the revolver in his hand brought him some comfort despite the fact that it didn't have a single bullet left in it. If it had, Arvo might have pointed it straight at the Kenny's head and shot him.

The group advanced towards Mike, who opened the door as soon as they were close enough. Out of the corner of his eye, Arvo saw Rowan inch towards the stairs and snatch something off the third step. He wondered what it was, but since they were nearly outside, he figured it could wait.

* * *

As soon as Rowan stepped out onto the porch, the tight knot of fear in her chest began to untangle. They were so close to getting away, and she prayed that Kenny or Jane would not wake up. The snow was beginning to get stronger, and Mike transferred a whimpering AJ to Clementine while he checked the front seat of the car.

"Shit." Mike swore.

Rowan bit her lip, hoping Mike's ire was caused by something minor. "...What is it?" She asked worriedly.

"The keys aren't in the ignition. Kenny must have them on him." Mike explained.

Arvo stepped forward, nudging Mike out of the way.  _"Goryachiy provod eto!"_

Mike glanced at Rowan, hoping she'd provide a explanation.

"I don't know." She shrugged.

"Wire it." Arvo translated from inside the car as he pulled out his screwdriver.

"You know how to do that?" Mike asked incredulously.

_"Da."_

Rowan shielded her face with her arm, trying to keep the flakes of snow out of her eyes.  _This storm is getting even worse._

AJ's earlier whimper turned into a high-pitched wail, and he continued to cry despite Clementine's frantic attempts to quiet him.

Arvo, startled by the noise, scrambled backwards and out of the car, nearly falling to the ground. Before any of them could stop him he limped around the car and took off towards the woods, fear in his eyes.

"Rowan, Clem! We've gotta go now!" Mike said, turning to follow Bonnie as she dashed for the treeline.

Rowan tightened her grip on her gun, wanting to move but knowing it was too late to turn her back on that door. When Kenny burst through the door, pulling the trigger was the easiest decision she had ever made.

* * *

The fury in the man's eyes began to fade as his gun clattered to the floor. He cupped his throat with his hands, but the blood gushed out from between his fingers, staining his hands red. When he opened his mouth, no words came out; only a wet, gurgling sound. His legs gave out from under him and he crashed to the ground and tumbled down the stairs, choking on his own blood. Another twitch and he finally lay still, blood continuing to ooze from the wound and onto the freshly fallen snow.

"Kenny!" Clementine screamed, running towards him.

Rowan turned and ran before she could register what she had done. She tore through the woods, blinded by the blizzard, desperately following the tracks of her accomplices before they were lost under a layer of new snow. By the time she stopped she could no longer hear the baby's cries. She dropped to the ground and saw two people approaching her. She could hear the concern in their voices without having to look at their faces.

"Rowan?" Mike called. "What happened back there? Are you okay?"

"Is Clementine with you? We heard a gunshot, did he-" Bonnie dropped the bag of food she was carrying when Rowan looked up at her. "You..."

Rowan could hardly breathe, let alone speak when they were both hurtling questions at her. "I don't know!" She said. "I can't..."

"Just breathe." Mike instructed.

"I can't!" She cried.

"Mike, we gotta go back. Clementine and AJ are still at the house." Bonnie said.

"What if Kenny-"

"You heard the damn gunshot, if Kenny didn't shoot her, then  _she_  shot him!" Bonnie gestured towards Rowan. "Look at her. We gotta get back to the kids before Jane takes the truck!"

"What about Arvo?"

"There's no time! Walkers are gonna be crawling all over this place, we've got to get out of here, now!"

"How the hell do we get back? Everything looks the same." Mike argued. "Where the fuck are we?"

"I'll get him." Rowan said, standing up. "Just go. I'll get him."

"Meet us back at the house!" She yelled as Rowan walked deeper into the woods, but Bonnie already sounded as if she were a mile away.

* * *

There was no reason to live anymore, not when he knew that he'd have to go on alone and that it was his fault for it. Arvo leaned against a tree trunk as he began to tear up. Kenny had shot Rowan, while he ran like a filthy coward. That man had murdered her.  _He's pure evil._

"Arvo?" He couldn't tell if it was his imagination or if someone was actually calling him. He turned around, fully prepared to die when he saw Rowan standing in front of him. For once, whatever was in charge of the universe took pity on him. He tried to remain composed but couldn't even look at her; throat burning as he tried to force back his sobs.

Rowan ran up to him and just stood there, like she was waiting for him to say something. When he didn't, she leaned in suddenly and put her lips against his for exactly two seconds.

"You're going to get a scar there." She told him absently, lightly brushing his bottom lip with her finger.

"You're alive." Arvo said, staring at her in amazement. "I thought he killed you."

"N-no." She shook her head.

Arvo knew he had heard a gun go off. He looked down and saw the pistol in his hand and blinked in surprise. "Oh."

Rowan tugged on his arm, leading him back the way they came. "They're waiting for us, come on."

* * *

When they emerged from the woods they were met with a frigid blast of wind. Rowan tried to tug her hood farther over her face, wanting to duck back into the forest where they had at least some protection from the storm. She squinted at the open space before them, looking for the truck. But the truck, and everyone they expected to still be at the house was gone. The only thing that remained was Kenny's body at the foot of the stairs.

From the corner of her eye she could see Arvo approach Kenny's corpse, the creak of his brace hardly audible over the howl of wind.  _He's reanimating._ Rowan realized with horror as the corpse twitched. Before it could move any further, Arvo drove his screwdriver into what was once the man's good eye.

_"Ty isportil vse!"_ He kicked and stabbed the body over and over again, screaming until Rowan had to block her ears and shut her eyes so tightly they began to hurt.

She opened her eyes and looked to the left and then to the right, hoping to catch a glimpse of a car off in the distance, but there was nothing but a road that seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. Her lungs felt like they were shrinking.  _They left without us._

"Arvo, s-stop."

_"Zlo ublyudok, ya nenavizhu tebya! Umri, umri, umri..."_

"He's dead, stop!" Rowan stumbled towards him, feeling fainter every time she tried to talk. "Please..."

Arvo stopped his butchering and came forward to catch her, a concerned look on his blood-splattered face. She leaned into him and began to gag from the prominent scent of blood. "Let go of me."

"Rowan-"

"No!" She shoved him away and fell to the ground, the world still spinning. She could hardly keep herself up on her knees.

Arvo clenched his fist.  _"Chto chert voz'mi vy zabotites'?_ He deserved death! _"_

Rowan was too busy trying to regulate her breathing to argue with him, but he just kept yelling. She watched him drag the body by the arms into a bush in the woods. When he was finished she couldn't even see the corpse.

"You do not have to look at it again." He took one of her arms and pulled her to her feet. "Inside, yes?"

* * *

He was stained red. From his scarlet hands to the flecks on the lens of his glasses, Arvo was covered in blood. The reflection in the window should have scared him, but it didn't. Rowan was sitting by the fire, having wrapped the blanket he had brought from upstairs around herself.

Arvo took his glasses off and ducked away from the window. Even though he knew it was unlikely that any walkers from the forest would have followed them due to being disoriented from the blizzard, he was still afraid. After wiping his glasses he settled down across from Rowan, and she unwound some of the blanket from her body and pushed it towards him and he put the cover over his legs.

The color had come back to her face due to the newly rekindled fire, and her breathing seemed to have returned to a normal rate, but she still looked haggard, the dark circles under her eyes even more apparent than before.

"You didn't have to do that. He was already dead." Rowan told him.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"No you're not. You liked it." She accused.

Arvo took a deep breath. "Okay, I am sorry that is problem."

"What the  _fuck_  is that supposed to mean?" She snarled.

He didn't know how to tell her that vengeance felt good, even when the one who had caused all of his suffering was already dead. Feigning remorse wasn't worth it. "I will not lie, I do not feel bad. He _destroyed_  my life and everyone I  _cared_  for. I thought he kill you too. Don't feel  _guilty_ , he had to die."

"Shooting him wasn't an accident." Rowan whispered. "I knew I had to."

"I am sorry you had to." He said, and this time he meant his apology.

"Me too."

"I ran away like a coward." Arvo lamented.  _Like usual._

"It's okay. It was my turn anyway."

"W-what?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It was my turn to save you. You fixed my arm when we first met, and then I helped you at the trailer park, you saved me from Kenny yesterday, and now I helped you."

"You're keeping count?" He laughed.

"It's your turn next." Rowan reminded him, grinning.

She yawned and unzipped her backpack to hand him a small picture. "Here."

His eyes widened in shock at the familiar photo. It was of him and Natasha before they had left for America, his mother had taken it. If their plan had gone right, then he would have left it behind. "Thank you."  _How could I have forgotten this?_

He switched positions and sat next to Rowan, putting his arms around her. "Warmer." He explained, but she had already fallen asleep.

Arvo held the picture up towards the glow of the fire to see it clearer. It had a tiny tear in the top right corner, but was otherwise unharmed. He felt tears pricking his eyes again. Though this picture had been taken years ago, it only felt like last week. Arvo quickly shoved it back into his pocket and zipped it up. It didn't matter how long he looked at it, he'd still have to live the rest of his life without Natasha, however long that may be.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the FF.net site, I uploaded this chapter two months ago and lazily forgot to do it here. So...enjoy, or something. I guess.

He stayed awake while she slept, wasting away what little was left of the night pacing back and forth to every window in the house until the break of dawn, unsure of what he was looking for. The fire was fainter now than it was hours ago, but it was still going, illuminating what the light coming through the windows couldn't reach. _There's nothing to see._

The sky was cloudy when he stepped outside and braced for the wind, but none came. The air was still and bitter, and the snow enveloped everything. Had the cluster of gaping holes in the ice not been there, it would have been impossible to tell that there was even a lake in front of him.

Arvo found himself glancing at his palms once there was nothing else left to look at. The splattered stains had dried as if they were tattooed onto his skin, some markedly darker than others. He bent down and scooped up some snow, and ignoring the quickness in which it numbed his fingers, began to scrub his hands until his flesh was raw and every inch of his skin was clean again.

When he was finished he closed the door and shoved his freezing hands into his pockets, shutting his eyes just as the floorboards began to creak.

_Did you stay up all night again?_

"W-what?"

Though he had heard her coming, Rowan's appearance beside him seemed sudden when he opened his eyes. Arvo felt her arms wrap around him and guide him towards the dim glow of the fireplace.

"You don't look so good, you need more sleep."

Arvo choked on every word he tried to say. Tears spilled out of his eyes and he couldn't control them no matter how tightly he clenched his fist and tried to forget. One arm around him became two as Rowan shifted to face him directly and hug him. She began to rub his back in circular motions, and he wanted this to comfort him, but even her touch felt distant, like his whole body was numb. Through the blur of his tears he could see the snowflakes were returning and sticking to the window.

* * *

The nagging pang of hunger that continued to grow was the only thing that provided her with some sense of reality. The world outside the door was a blank white page, and she had no grasp of time. Was it morning, or night? Had it been days, or minutes? It was hard to keep her eyes off the glass doors, off the snow that kept piling up against it higher and higher.

There was no sense in travelling across the room to the back-door, she knew it'd be no different. The truck was gone, everyone was gone. _You did what you had to._ She told herself for the millionth time. If she hadn't, then they would have been the ones dead under a bush somewhere, their bodies packed under the snow to thaw in the spring and be devoured by anything desperate enough to try.

Rowan looked back towards the fireplace, hoping he had moved, even if only an inch. But he lay there frozen to the floor, as if he were too weak to even sit up. She could sense he was still grieving and she wanted to leave him to it, but as he sunk deeper into lethargy with every passing moment she couldn't resist trying to get to him.

She lay down next to Arvo, pressing into his side roughly. _I'm here._ Anything was better than being left with the weight of her own thoughts that raged inside her head like the storm outside. "Please talk to me."

No response.

 _"Please."_ She repeated, voice strained with desperation.

"What do you want me to say?"

 _Anything._ "We're going to die if we don't do something."

"It does not matter."

"How could you say that?"

I do not want to talk." He turned onto his side.

"Please don't do this. I don't want to be alone again." Rowan clutched his shoulder in a panicked motion. She could feel him clench up under her touch and he turned around and sat up.

" _O chem ty govorish'?_ You are not, I am here…I am not going anywhere, I only want to see her again." She felt his cold fingers brush against the side of her head as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

"You can't. The dead are gone."

"But it's my fault she's gone." Arvo whimpered. "I didn't even get to tell her I'm sorry. She was so mad..."

"Don't blame yourself."

"Why should I not?"

"Because you can't." Rowan said firmly, grabbing his shoulders. "Listen to me, don't you think life is miserable enough?"

He didn't answer.

"You don't want to live with the guilt. It kills you." Her voice cracked. "There's enough shit in the world without having that eat away at you."

"But I miss her, I cannot stop that."

"You're not supposed to. I don't think that goes away." Tears welled up in her eyes again. "I don't want you to feel like that for the rest of your life. It's awful."

"I just wanted us to be safe."

"I know." She sighed. "We can't wait for anyone else to save us, we have to do it ourselves."

* * *

Arvo ran his fingers through her long hair for want of a comb. He had spent many hours doing the same to Natasha's hair during periods of boredom or bouts of anxiety. Her fine, scraggly hair often got caught on his fingers, and Rowan's hair proved to be no different, if not longer.

Rowan leaned back onto his shoulder and stared at the ceiling. "How can I be so tired when I've done nothing but sleep?"

"Because you worry. It makes you sleepy."

"I'm hungry." She whispered. "We need food."

"They took everything." He said, eyes narrowing in anger. "They didn't have to do that."

"We have to find them."

"Not worth it, they are long gone."

"They were heading towards the town, maybe there's stuff there." She insisted.

Arvo stiffened. "No, too dangerous."

"Have you ever been down there?"

"...There are many monsters in places like that."

"How'd you get food then, if you didn't go into cities?"

"Hunting." He hadn't been the one to do any of the actual hunting, but it was still true.

Rowan suddenly jumped up with such force that it startled him. "The snow stopped! Do you have any supplies left?"

"...No?" He responded in confusion, glancing at the window to see that the storm had indeed stopped.

"I mean, like, hidden somewhere. Didn't you have a backpack with you, or something?"

She was talking so quickly he couldn't understand a word of what she was saying. "I-I not, I do not-" Once it became clear to him what exactly she was talking about, he became even more frustrated at his inability to express himself.

"Where did you put it, does it have food? Or medicine, anything?"

He flinched when she stepped closer. "Stop!"

"I'm not gonna hurt you, it's okay. Just try to remember." She said softly.

Arvo took a deep breath. "Bridge. It is in a trashcan by the...t-town? Back the way we came." He pointed at the treeline across the lake. "Not far."

"If we go now we can make it there and back before the sun goes down."

He stared at the ground, frightened that the snow would swallow him whole if he stepped off the back porch. There was no way he'd be able to walk in this, not with his leg the way it was. Rowan was already moving out towards the lake.

"Wait." He said meekly.

Arvo moved carefully, putting his non-injured leg into the snow first. It went even higher than his knee and it felt as if his limb had been encased in cement.

"You need help?" Rowan asked, returning to him as he put his other leg down.

He growled in frustration as he tried to maneuver through the thick snow.

"It's okay, just take your time."

"...This is not working." He said, not wanting to admit that he would only slow her down.

"Then I'll go."

"No!"

"You said it wasn't far!"

Arvo shook his head. "You cannot go alone."

"...I have been alone before, you know." She replied softly.

"We go together when the snow melts."

"That's not-no. I'm going to get us food. We can't wait around anymore."

He wished he could just will her to come back inside, but he didn't want to fight anymore, not after the week he had. "Here. Take it." Arvo shrugged his jacket off and held it out to her in defeat.

Rowan looked apologetic, but not enough to see it his way. "I'll be back. Don't worry about me."

* * *

Rowan glanced back towards the house as she made her way around the lake. Arvo was still on the porch, and probably would remain there, watching her until the forest hid her from view. She wanted him with her, but the longer they stayed inside the weaker they'd get-made obvious by the fact that she was already tiring after hardly being out for long. They needed that bag, it was now or never.

When she finally breached the treeline and the only thing she could see when she looked over her shoulder was the frost-covered underbrush, she realized that the woods were eerily quiet after the blizzard. No animals, no dead, only a silence as heavy as the snow that weighed down on the tree branches. The path they had taken days ago looked only vaguely familiar.

As the time passed, she became more and more grateful that Arvo had given her his coat, the second layer providing a level of warmth she hadn't experienced in what seemed like years. Her hands were still cold even though she had shoved them into the coat pockets, fingers tightly curled into the inner material and the zipper pulled up as far as possible without pinching her skin. The path they had taken days ago looked only vaguely familiar. _As long as you keep going in this general direction, you'll make it to the main road in a few hours. Just keep moving._

* * *

The river had frozen over, like the lake had. Farther upstream she could see a simple stone-arch bridge with what appeared to be a trashbin. It had to have been the right one. It felt odd to travel without the cover of trees after she had spent so much time in the woods. Even though she knew the trek back would be rough, coming up to the bridge felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

The garbage can was the kind you'd find in playgrounds, a large, rusting metal can with beige paint that looked as if it would peel off at any moment. It didn't even have a lid. She took a deep breath, afraid of what would happen if the bag wasn't there. What option would she have if that were the case? To waste the remaining bullets she had by hunting? Going deeper into the town to scavenge? Both options were time consuming and dangerous considering she was so far away from familiar shelter.

Rowan glanced down into the garbage to see two white, sunken-in eyes staring up at her. Before the walker could even growl at her she jerked away with such force and landed on her back, cushioned by the soft snow. It was a head. Someone had cut off its head and placed it inside. _Why? Why wouldn't they just destroy the brain instead of leaving it alive?_ It was as if whoever did this wanted someone to get hurt. It was only a walker, but the gesture itself was chilling. A reminder of what kind of people were out here, and that they had been here recently. Probably still around, somewhere. She stood up, heart pounding. _Just get what you came for and get out._

Upon second inspection, she realized that the head was situated right on top of the bag. Not wanting to risk grappling with the walker, she nudged the garbage can, trying to let it down gently before finally deciding to slam into it, figuring the noise would be stifled. It hit the ground with a dull thud and the head came rolling out like a bowling ball. Rowan quickly stuck her knife into its skull and swung the bag around her shoulder. It was definitely the same one Arvo had with him, right down to the taped up hole in the corner.

She opened it up to see everything she expected; medicine, water, and even a few cans of food. Rowan held it to her as if it were a baby, relief washing over her.

"Hey."

Rowan nearly dropped the bag as she spun around, awkwardly clutching the bag to her body with one hand while she held her gun steady with the other.

The person facing her had long, light hair. She was a few inches taller, but likely the same age. Rowan's gaze wandered to her hand to see that the girl was holding some sort of video camera instead of a weapon. She had such a calm stare even with a gun pointed at her face. _Is this an ambush?_ She tried to look to the side without moving her head, fearing there were others hidden in the woods, weapons pointed straight at her.

"I'm Maeve." The girl continued.

_Or maybe she's alone, just like you were._

"...Where did you come from?" She asked warily.

"A long way." Maeve pointed. "There's some dead people down the path, a mile or so. I don't think they turned. Looks like they were shot."

Rowan froze at the mention of the site of the gunfight. She knew that the bodies of Arvo's group were still there, but she wanted to forget. "They probably got into a fight with other people." She said shakily. "That happens, you know."

"Or maybe they did it to themselves, maybe they've done terrible things and felt bad about it." Maeve shrugged passively.

She thought to say something cliche in their defense, something like 'you didn't know them' but then again, neither did she. "What are you doing out here?"

"Filming stuff. Do you want to see?" She offered.

 _Who the hell would do that nowadays?_ "N-no thank you. I have to leave."

The girl continued as if it were a casual conversation, completely apathetic to the underlying tension Rowan was feeling.

"That's a nice jacket, where did you get it?"

"A friend." She replied quickly. "I've really got to go back." She continued as if she was trying to come up with an excuse to leave an awkward party.

Maeve looked only marginally disappointed. "Alright."

Rowan did not even bid her goodbye before turning and fleeing towards the woods. Though she did not look back, she could feel the stranger's eyes boring into the back of her head.

* * *

It was about half an hour before it'd be too dark to see, and he was trying desperately to stay calm. _Now you know how Natasha must have felt whenever you went out._ He had tried to keep his mind on anything else, but the thought of Rowan out there alone chewed away at him.

"What are you going to do if she doesn't come back?" Arvo wondered out-loud, half expecting another voice to answer him. _Just die._ He rubbed his arms absently as if the biting cold was a bug he could swat off.

He heard the sliding glass door before he saw who had come in, turning his head just as Rowan stumbled inside. "I'm here." She said, holding up the bag weakly. "I-I got it."

* * *

They ate in silence, too starved to think of conserving what little they had, the worry of where their next meal would come from to be dealt with when the pain of hunger returned. When Arvo had finished everything that was in the can, he set it onto the ground with a dull clank.

"I met someone while I was out there." Rowan admitted nervously, her voice sounding even smaller than usual. "It was so weird."

He raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Was there anyone else?"

"I think she was alone. But she had a video camera with her, I don't know why."

Arvo froze, his dull, bitten nails digging into the flesh of his palm. _It can't be them._

"What?" Rowan asked, clearly noticing his trepidation. "What is it?"

"I-I know this person. They are...very bad people. We have to leave right now." He was beginning to lose focus of his vision, his fear growing with each passing second.

"What are you talking about? Calm down."

"Did she follow you?"

"I don't know!"

 _She was wearing your jacket. They'll know it's you._ _"Oh shit. Shit...fuck, oh my fucking God-"_

"Stop yelling!" Rowan told him, biting her lip. "Just stop it!"

Arvo fell silent, afraid to make her cry again. "I'm sorry."

"Tell me what's wrong."

He tried to steady his breathing. "Before we came here, we were being followed because Buricko and Vitali stole lots of food from them. Then they came back and killed Tamara."

"Who?"

"Natasha's friend. Before those things came, we went here to visit her, and that's how we got stuck here. It was dark out, but one of them was filming it. I know it."

"And you think it's her, because she has a camera with her? It could have been anyone."

"It was them, I know it. They are...stalkers. She could have killed you." The realization hit him and he wrapped himself around her, trying not to cry. "Don't leave me again. Ever."

"She wasn't a killer, just...weird." Rowan said, muffled by his jacket.

"We have to go anyway. There's nothing out here."

"Well...we can't go right this second. It's dark out now. Where would we even go?" She argued.

"...I have ideas." He said uncertainly.

"Tell me one."

"The town has to have a car that works." Arvo said suddenly. He didn't want to set foot in the place, but if a trip there would help them get even farther away from this place, then he was willing to risk it.

"If it doesn't?"

"I'll fix one. We can drive away, go wherever you want." He offered impatiently.

Rowan sat down, exhausted. "If the snow melts, we can go tomorrow, but I don't want to rush into anything. It's safe here, sorta. I don't want to leave and find nothing. Doing stuff like that is just going to get us killed if there's nothing out there."

"There is, we just have to find it, remember?"


	9. Chapter 9

Arvo woke suddenly, breathing heavily as if he had just come up from being dunked into black, icy water. He felt disoriented and vaguely uncomfortable; the kind of feeling one gets right after waking up from a nightmare without being able to recall the specifics. It was so dark that he could hardly tell if his eyes were open or closed. Arvo took a brief look around, trying to catch some semblance of light in his field of vision while his hands scrabbled about on the ground, desperately trying to find something to hold onto.

" _Ryabina?_ " He called meekly. "Where did you go?"

Arvo stood on unsteady legs, his heart still racing as he limped through the ill-lit house. _Why is it so dark in here?_ He didn't even remember where he had first woken up in his frantic attempt to locate Rowan, the more walls he banged into the more discouraged he became. Upon rounding the corner, his bad leg knocked into the large trash can in the corner and he fell forward, palms hitting the floor. _You're right back where you started._

Across the room, he could hear footsteps. Almost immediately he turned around and began to back away while trying to get up at the same time, which only resulted in him falling back onto the ground. His hand was on his gun at that second, forgetting he was out of bullets and might as well have been completely blind, considering how dark it was. "I-I will shoot! Do not move!"

The sound of movement ceased the second he spoke. He waved the gun around, the feeling that he was pointing at nothing no matter where his arm went grew stronger every second, feeding into his panicked state. "Stay away!"

"It's just me, what the hell!?" Rowan cried.

Arvo let the weapon fall to the ground at that second. "Oh." He got to his knees and tried to register what had just happened. _"Oh, thank God."_

"The fire went out, and I couldn't get it to go again." She continued regretfully, "It's so cold now…"

"So no one is out there, yes?" He asked nervously.

"I didn't see anyone...Why?' She asked, as if she already knew what his answer would be.

"Are you sure?" He ignored her question and stood up. "Where were you?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Quit acting like this, you're scaring me."

"I can't." He admitted quietly. "I'm scared too... _Ryabina_ , something bad is going to happen."

"Like what?"

"I do not know." He bit his lip.

"Something bad is always happening." She replied.

* * *

She didn't sleep, but couldn't bring herself to talk either, and neither did Arvo. They leaned against the wall and let the hours pass until the sunlight finally began to seep through the window. Rowan clenched the fabric in her pockets tighter, trying to keep her fingers warm. The embers that once thrived in the fireplace had all gone out, for good this time; she knew there was no point trying to resurrect it when they'd be leaving anyway.

"You need to tell me where you want to go." She finally spoke, exhaling.

" _Chto?_ I do not know where yet."

"You have to, we're alone now." She insisted, the truth of that statement dawning on her the second it left her mouth. "It feels so wrong to say that."

Arvo put his chin in his hands. "That we are alone?"

She nodded, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm glad we met, okay?" She clung to the sleeve of his jacket, as if he'd slip away with her saying so. "I would have died if you didn't help me." It was something she told to everyone but him.

"I-I'm happy too. About you, I mean. Not...this." Arvo gestured to nothing in particular. "Do not cry about good things."

"I can't help it." Rowan rubbed at her eye. "All that stuff I said about finding a place to live, I don't even know what I'm talking about. There's nothing out there no matter where we go, we're just gonna die eventually."

He was quiet for a long time after that, and then offered in a tone that made her unsure if he was kidding or not, "If we do, then at least we can die together, yes?"

"How romantic of you." Rowan said dryly.

"Really?"

She laughed, the kind of laugh that tickled inside of her chest. "I only said that stuff about us saving ourselves so you'd talk to me again. I thought you were never going to talk again."

"So you do not really think there is a place out there for us to be safe?"

"I used to. I used to live in one. But I don't, not anymore. Kenny kept talking about Wellington, and whenever anyone asked him where it was, all he'd say was 'up near Michigan.' What the fuck does that even mean? That could be Canada, for all we know."

"Then we go to Canada." He joked. "That's where we can go. I like Canada better anyway."

"We'd need better coats. But seriously, even if a place like that is still around, we'll probably never find it."

"You know, I told my sister that I would rather be in this hell with her, than at home without her. My country-my home, is probably as fucked as this one, but it is thought that count."

She leaned into his shoulder and smiled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Everyone else I have known is dead or gone, you are it."

Rowan was in the same position, though she didn't voice it, she knew that he was aware.

"I feel like I love you sometimes." He continued.

As soon as he spoke, she sat up again. "Y-you're kidding, right? You don't mean that."

"I-I don't know."

"Don't say stuff like that, we've only known each other for like, two weeks. Quit playing around."

"I'm not." He said, narrowing his eyes. "Time is different now. It feels longer, somehow...Do you not feel that?"

"Just because it feels that way doesn't mean it is."

"So, you feel it too?" He asked again.

"Can you just stop? Please. I don't want to think about this right now." Rowan said quickly, still not sure what exactly to say to him.

"Okay, if you do not want to, is fine."

Rowan couldn't leave it at that. If she did, every silence they had from here on out would be suffocating. "I'm not saying I don't want to ever, just not now, do you get that?"

Arvo only shrugged. "Sure."

He seems so nonchalant. Rowan half expected him to flip out on her, or cry even; have _some_ sort of outburst of negative emotion. But he was quiet, and somehow that was worse-she didn't know how he actually felt. If he really was mad at her, she would have known by now-he never kept his anger secret.

* * *

Arvo didn't know what to expect from her when he said that. He didn't even know himself why he had said what he did, she was right-he didn't mean it. But he wanted to mean it.

Rowan didn't seem angry at him; she still held his hand to help him navigate the shin-deep snow and kept making the effort to speak with him as they made their trek towards the town; though everything she had to say was just inane small-talk. They were moving at a pitifully slow pace, and he knew it was because of him and his damn leg-but Rowan kept with him. Even though she told him she didn't want things to be different, he couldn't help but think he had ruined things between them, somehow.

The time he had spent in the unfinished house couldn't have been much longer than a month-but he still felt a pang of sadness seeing it shrink more and more each time he looked over his shoulder. Now it was nothing but a dark speck in his field of vision; a blot of ink on a great white canvass. If it had been finished all the way, he would have rode out the entire end of the world in that house out in the middle of the woods, away from both the dead and the living.

* * *

Taking the road proved to be a more direct path to the town, and soon Rowan began to recognize her surroundings. She adjusted her backpack and looked towards the familiar stone-arch bridge.

"Close now." Arvo confirmed with a nod.

She knew it'd be a terrible idea to mention that this is where she had met Maeve, considering how poorly Arvo had reacted the first time, so she kept quiet as they reached the bridge. If the girl were still in the area, she probably had set up a place here, but she definitely wasn't going to mention that to him either. _I'm sure she's moved on now, anyway._ Either way, Rowan knew he didn't want to spend any more time here than they had to, and in all honesty-she didn't either.

A drift had piled up at the bottom of the bridge; the curve of the structure too steep to hold up all the snow that had fallen, despite the fact that it wasn't as bad as it had been the last time she had gone out.

Rowan clutched the cold metal railing and pulled herself up over the pile, kicking over some of the snow to make it easier for Arvo to cross. Though the rail was ice cold, she couldn't help but cling to it as they continued to walk. She looked to the side, observing the winding riverbank. Arvo, on the other hand, was looking straight ahead with a grim expression, as if he were scoping for threats that lie miles ahead of them.

Once they made it to the other side, Rowan was stunned at how quickly the scenery changed. The trees gave way to houses, cars, streetlights-abandoned houses, dead cars, broken streetlights...but the novelty of it all was still preserved. Many of the houses on the block were surrounded by brick walls and tall, Victorian-style fences. It probably kept the majority of walkers out, not that a big enough herd wouldn't be able to knock down gates-but they wouldn't go attacking obvious barriers without being provided a reason to do so.

Arvo would occasionally stop by certain cars, inspecting them and mumbling inaudibly. Rowan paused when he did, taking in her surroundings whenever he was busy. It had been a long time since she had set foot in an urban area, and though the dangers of being back in a place like this were fresh in her mind, she couldn't stop herself from reveling in her nostalgic feelings.

As they ventured further they found themselves on what she assumed was the main street. Houses began to turn into little retail stores, restaurants, and above those-the likely apartments of whoever owned said shops. When she stared down the alleyways, many of them were still filled with decorations; lights strung up, drawings spray-painted onto the walls, empty pots on the balconies that likely once held plants and so on.

* * *

"What are you looking for?" She asked after they came upon the fifth car.

Arvo growled angrily and kicked one of the tires with his good leg. "You would not know."

"There's an entire town full of cars, we'll find something eventually." Rowan reasoned. "We need to find a place to stay now, or look for supplies. I need more bullets, and I know you do too." _There is no way the entire town has been picked clean, that's impossible._

He looked like he wanted to disagree for a moment, but instead sighed and shrugged his shoulders. " _Da._ Let's go."

Arvo moved off the road and onto the sidewalk, pulling ahead of her a bit. He passed by a hopelessly totaled vehicle that looked as if it had crashed into a streetlamp, freezing suddenly. Rowan bounded through the snow to catch up to him, and paused when she heard the sound of snarling. Arvo ducked beside the vehicle and she quickly followed, kneeling down into the snow.

"Walkers." She gasped as Arvo began to creep forward, trying to pinpoint where exactly the noise was coming from. "I think they're in the alleyway up there-"

" _Der'mo!_ " He lurched forward, falling onto his knees into the snow.

"What!?"

"I tripped on-"

Rowan looked up to see the chain-link gate from around the corner of the building beginning to slide open. As it dragged along it began to pile up snow and got caught, but left just enough space for a walker to lean onto the door and push past it.

Arvo scrambled backwards immediately as more walkers came from around the corner, and Rowan grabbed his arm and helped him up.

"Where do we go?" He asked, wide eyed.

Rowan led him around the crashed car, the walkers ambling towards them, slower than usual. The snow slows them down too. She pulled him out into the street, heading for the other sidewalk before veering off down the road. The walkers did not think to turn around, instead shambling alongside the car until the barrier was out of their way. By then, they already had a slight lead on the dead.

"I can't move! _Chert voz'mi!_ " Arvo was awkwardly dragging himself through the snow, hardly able to lift up his bad leg.

"Keep going!" Rowan said, holding onto his arm even tighter than before as they rounded another corner. "They're going slow too! Just don't stop."

She took every opportunity she had to confuse the walkers and put them through obstacles, knocking over garbage bins that weren't nailed to the floor, weaving through any crashed vehicles to slow them down, and it seemed to be working-they fell for everything.

Arvo kept in a straight line whenever he could, focusing on moving forward and not much else, trusting her to confuse the walkers enough to keep their lead. Rowan looked over her shoulder, frustrated at how compact the group of walkers were. If there was space, she could pick them off one by one with her knife, but she knew the second she drew close they'd surround her easily on such a narrow pathway, and she wasn't willing to risk that until they were in an open area.

"Look!" Rowan pointed towards the intersection at the end of the street. Another tall, black fence like the ones she had seen earlier was not far. "Go there!" She said, grabbing onto his arm again. This section of the street had nothing for them to hide behind. They just had to move, and hope that the walkers wouldn't catch up with them.

When they made it down the street and to the gate, she began searching for the latch with increased desperation. "I can't find it!"

"It's on other side!" Arvo hissed beside her, glancing behind them. The walkers were still advancing on them, even with the snowfall holding them back.

Rowan quickly looked up at the fence, noticing the points at the top and the horizontal bars running across it. "I can get up there and unlock it." She told him, and without hesitation Arvo linked his fingers together and boosted her up over the fence.

With his help she was able to latch onto the upper part of the gate and pull herself upward. She hoisted herself over the fence and landed awkwardly on her hip, the snow doing little to brace her fall. Ow. Slightly stunned, she got to her feet and ran to the gate just as Arvo threw their bags over the fence. Hands shaking, she found the latch and undid it, opening the gate in time for Arvo to squeeze through and help her lock it back up.

"You okay?" He asked, panting.

"Are you?" Rowan countered, concerned with how hard the run had been on him.

Arvo nodded as she moved towards their bags, ignoring the walkers that had begun to pile up and reach through the open slots in the fence. She unzipped his bag and pulled out one of the water bottles. "Here."

After he finished drinking and handed it off to her, he pointed to the walkers, "Someone did that to us."

"What?" She asked once she was done drinking.

"I tripped on rope. The gate did not open by itself." Arvo said darkly.

"Okay." Rowan said calmly, not sure if she believed him or not. The memory of the walker's head in the trash-can that day came back to her, and she narrowed her eyes. _The whole city must be full of traps like that, then. Who would go through all that trouble? It's probably the same person._

"You do not believe me." He said indignantly. _"Ya ne mogu poverit v eto der'mo!"_

"No no, I do." She said softly. "... _Someone_ did it, obviously."

Arvo looked towards the building. "They are fucking with us, whoever they are."

"Not just us, anyone who sets foot in the place."

"They are after me, Rowan. Please listen to me." Arvo begged.

"Okay, so they are, whoever they are." She snapped. "What are we going to do about that right now? We're stuck here until those things wander away or we kill them, so we should probably focus on that first."

Upon seeing the hurt look on his still slightly-bruised face, she felt bad. "Let's just go inside for now, alright? We need to take care of one thing at a time." _I just hope whoever set that trap didn't intend to lead us here._


	10. Chapter 10

The large sign in front of the building read, "Motel" in big red letters, and nothing else. The marquee directly below it had a smattering of letters left, so few that it was impossible to decode whatever message had once been spelled out on the board. The open space on both sides of the motel denoted the parking area, but there wasn't a single car left in the lot.

Rowan tensed up when a sharp gust of wind blew right through her sweater, nothing to brace them from the cold. She glanced back at the gate, the walkers still furiously clawing away, their spindly limbs reaching through the slats of the fence. The breeze carried their wretched snarling sounds farther, making them appear closer than they actually were. It seemed as if the number of dead had duplicated in just the few minutes it took for them to walk up to the motel.

As they approached the front doors, she noticed many of the windows were cracked, or completely blown out. The doors themselves looked worn, the red paint chipping badly and the left one looking like it had been slammed far too many times, slightly ajar as if it couldn't be closed quite right.

"I go first." Arvo offered, though it was obvious he didn't really want to go inside at all.

She studied the building in front of them, trying to detect movement by looking through the broken windows, but she couldn't see a thing.

"Wait." She hissed when he stepped forward, pulling out her gun. "Don't go in, just open the door and I'll shoot if something comes out."

Arvo nodded and resumed his approach towards the door, and she watched in anticipation as he placed his hand on the knob and turned it slowly, a long creak sounded in response. When it refused to open, he leaned into it until it began to give, the opening just wide enough for them to squeeze through and get inside.

Rowan had been staring at the door so intensely that she didn't expect to see an arm poke out and latch onto Arvo, pulling him into the lobby.

The door slid shut in that second and Rowan ran forward, able to hear his muffled shouts from the other side of the door. She burst through the entrance and blindly pointed her gun in the direction of his yelling.

Jane stood about five feet in front of her, trying to aim a gun with one hand while tightly clutching onto Arvo with the other. Rowan's eyes widened, unable to register if the person in front of her really was Jane, or just her eyes playing tricks on her.

"Let him go or I'll shoot you." Rowan said darkly, narrowing her eyes and pointing her weapon.

Jane held the gun as steadily as she could with Arvo furiously trying to break away from her grip, but she wasn't quite strong enough to pull him in front of her to use as a bargaining chip.

The initial realization of finally having the upper hand fueled her resolve and she steadied her aim, ready to repeat what she had just said. The sound of a click drained her determination almost immediately.

"Put it down." A familiar voice from behind her commanded; what was usually small and ineffective now sounded firm, on the cusp of intimidating, threatening. Or perhaps it only seemed that way because Rowan couldn't see her small stature and sad eyes from where she was standing.

There was a gun to her back and a gun in front of her, though one's aim was far more steadier than the other. Her arms felt like they had frozen into position and her fingers had gone numb. The seconds seemed to drag on like hours, she didn't move a muscle and neither did Jane.

Arvo's furious flailing finally paid off as he managed to break away from Jane and came tumbling to the ground, unbalancing the woman in the process.

"No!" He choked out, getting up immediately and scrambling towards the center of the standoff.

"How the fuck-" Jane started, cut off by Arvo.

"Put the guns down!" He demanded, the mix of anger and urgency in his voice enough to get Rowan to soften her grip.

Rowan watched Jane awkwardly lower her weapon, the shocked expression on her face quickly looking as if it were becoming permanent. She felt a pair of cold, trembling hands clasp onto her own; Arvo close enough to her now that if he were to whisper she would have heard him. "Please." He said desperately, tugging on her arms. "Let go _Ryabina_ , please."

She let him take the pistol from her, and once he did she inched even closer to him, Jane on their left and Clementine on their right.

"You're alive…" Clementine said, softly but victoriously-as if their continued existence had proved some sort of point to her.

"We thought you died." Jane said plainly, as if the girl's statement was something in need of clarification.

Arvo said nothing, so Rowan simply responded with, "Well, we didn't."

Rowan didn't know what to do at that point. Their reunion wasn't one of strangers, but it wasn't one of friends. The silence was reminiscent of a group of acquaintances at a party that had run out of things to talk about, as if the only way they knew how to communicate with one another was under the stress of a standoff.

"We didn't think it was gonna be you guys walking through the door." Jane told them.

"You were expecting someone?" Rowan asked curiously, the realization of Bonnie and Mike's absence hitting her in that moment.

She glanced around the lobby, noticing how empty it felt. As far as she could tell, Bonnie and Mike weren't here. But if that was who Jane and Clementine were looking for, surely they wouldn't have reacted the way they just had. She knew Jane didn't have the best social skills, but she wouldn't do something that outlandish. At least, not to them.

Jane looked as if she were about to say something but wasn't sure how to phrase it.

"Who did you think it was going to be?" Arvo repeated, as if he knew the answer and was simultaneously dreading and expecting it.

"It doesn't matter." She deflected.

Rowan knew Arvo wasn't going to let it go, but she didn't have time to convince him to drop it.

"Who else is with you?" Rowan asked, trying to change the subject.

"Nobody." Jane responded. "We don't know where Bonnie and Mike are."

She noticed Clementine narrow her eyes at Jane's words. The girl looked as if she wanted to say something, but she stayed quiet.

"What happened to them?" Arvo pressed. "Were they with you?"

"I told you, I don't know."

"We left without them." Clementine finally mumbled, staring at her feet.

"Seriously?" Rowan blurted out. "You didn't even take them with you? All you had to do was wait five minutes! We were coming back."

"None of you seemed to care about waiting when you wanted to fuck off into the night without inviting me and leaving me with that psychopath!" Jane countered bitterly.

"He wasn't a psychopath..." Clementine argued.

"Yes he was." Arvo said quickly.

"Oh my God, that's not the fucking point." Rowan said, exasperated.

"It doesn't matter now. At least they still have food, so they're better off than we are." Jane muttered.

" _Chto?_ Where's the food?"

"We don't have it anymore." Clementine said glumly. "The truck broke...and we lost the food."

"How do you just lose food?" Rowan asked incredulously.

"We got jumped, like you clearly did." Jane told them.

"What? Who?" Arvo broke in quickly. "How many? What did they look like?"

"I don't remember!" Jane snapped. "I was driving, we ran over some traffic spikes or, something and it blew out the tires. Walkers started swarming from everywhere, and we dropped the bag. When I went out to get it back, it was gone. Someone set us up."

"Another trap." Rowan said. "Someone has been setting up traps all over here, like they're trying to catch people, or get them killed so they can take their stuff."

"It's like a hands-off approach to holding someone up." Jane said. "Set traps, and you don't have to physically confront groups and risk getting shot. It's actually genius, in a way. The whole place is a death trap."

"Then why are you still here?" Arvo asked accusingly.

"Do you think we're just going to go wandering out in the open, on-foot with hardly any food and a baby?" Jane studied the expression on his face and narrowed her eyes. "Goddamn it. You think we're lying, don't you?"

Clementine jumped in. "Nobody is saying that-"

"You don't seriously think Clem and I set those traps, do you?" Jane continued, cutting her off.

"Not Clementine." He responded evenly.

"This is ridiculous. You were the ones that tried to run off with the truck and everything else in the first place and now you're accusing me? Come on Clem, tell him he's being an idiot."

Clementine just followed their argument with tensed hands and tired eyes, unwilling to speak up on Jane's behalf but at the same time incapable of saying anything against her.

"You probably keep her hostage or something! Only way to get anyone to stay with you. Why should I believe you?" Arvo said.

"Because I didn't blow your damn brains out the second I saw you." She countered. "I'm not that fucking crazy."

Rowan grabbed onto Arvo's coat and began to drag him away. "I need to talk to you. _Alone._ "

* * *

"You need to stop." She said sternly once they had rounded the corner. "Just stop."

"Let go." He said, swatting at her hand, which was still firmly entrenched in his jacket.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked irritably. "Come on, you know she didn't do it."

Arvo leaned against the wall and sat down, trying to calm his anger. "I don't know…" He knew he was just making blind accusations, but he could never stop once he got started. Not when someone was still out there, plotting to kill them. It would have been so much easier if it were just Jane, trying to get back at them for abandoning her with Kenny. He wanted to believe it was her.

"You should apologize."

"No." Arvo said firmly. "Why should I? She never said sorry for ruining my life."

"Maybe because it isn't worth fighting over?"

"Why are you always trying to say sorry for things you are not even sorry for? You Americans are so full of shit. Always saying things you don't mean." He complained.

"Well, I'm _so_ sorry that I don't want to start stupid arguments with every single person left on earth!"

"You just did it again." He pointed out, knowing he was being petty.

"Shut up." She choked, as if she were about to start crying. "I was being sarcastic."

"Don't do that." He said.

"Don't do what?"

"Cry." He said. "Why do you always cry? Stop trying to make me feel bad!"

"Do you really think I cry just to make you feel bad about being a jerk?"

To him, sometimes it seemed so. "Uh. no?"

"Idiot." She said, wiping away her tears.

"They had the truck...and they destroyed it." Arvo said lamely. _We're trapped here, and whoever is out there after us knows it._ He figured that the only good thing about running into them again is that they at least had a working vehicle with them, but that wasn't even true anymore.

"Hey."

Arvo looked up to see Clementine peering from around the corner.

"Jane didn't mean what she said." The girl told him.

"Tell her, say that to my face instead of making you do it." He said bitterly.

"Don't talk to her like that." Rowan reprimanded.

"...It's okay." The girl said, looking at the floor.

"No it's not." Rowan told her.

She grabbed his arm and pulling him up and leading him to the main room. "Come on...We have nowhere else to go."

Jane was standing by the window when the three returned, her arms crossed, staring outside intently. "We need to deal with _that._ " She said, gesturing towards the walkers that were still at the fence. "More will see it and then we'll really be fucked."

* * *

Arvo walked beside Rowan as they went back outside. His mind felt as if it were in a million places at once, but there was nothing he could do about it. It was too late to go back to the house now, and even if they did it wouldn't solve any of their problems.

When they made it up to the fence, Clementine sat down on a bench and held the wrapped baby closer to her.

"If he cries, just take him back inside." Jane said, but her voice sounded far away to him.

The writhing bodies all blurred into one in front of him, even as Jane and Rowan pulled out their knives and began to stab into the mass. No matter how many times he watched the blades flash back and forth, one second clean and the next covered in more and more blood, spilling over onto their hands and wrists until he could hardly tell where the knife ended and their hands began, nothing changed.

Jane stopped, but he didn't notice until she had thrust the handle of the blood-soaked blade towards him.

"Your turn."


	11. Chapter 11

Arvo walked back to the hotel as a feeling of numbness began to settle over him. Even Rowan was a few paces ahead, and she usually tried to stay with him, but he was used to being at the end. The walk back from the gate felt longer, longer than it took to walk out there in the first place, and much longer than it had when he and Rowan had first discovered it. They should be inside by now.

The baby had started to cry again, but the noise sounded as if it were miles away. Everything was within his sight, but somehow miles away at the same time.

"He's crying again." Jane said, in a way that implied she intended to do nothing about it.

"He is cold." Arvo responded automatically, not bothering to look up. The ground below him was so blindingly white, and cold. He was cold too.

* * *

When they had made it back inside, it seemed as if he was beginning to gain his senses again. He ran his hand through his hair, acutely aware of his own movement. He couldn't feel the wind whipping around him or the snow dragging him down anymore. A chill remained in the room, but it was still now.

"Are you okay?" Clementine asked him, her voice hanging in the air.

It took him a second to realize she was talking to him. Rowan was the only one who had ever been consistently worried about his well-being, really the only person he had been around at all, that it was a foreign feeling to hear that question coming from someone else.

"What?" He mumbled.

"You don't look so good, that's all." She said.

It felt like she didn't mean it in a physical way, as if he had some sort of illness.

Arvo stood there without moving, trying to clear his head. He didn't want to stay here. They couldn't stay here.

"I want to see the truck. Take me to it."

"Why? I told you, that thing is totaled...Unless you think we're lying about that too?" Jane deadpanned.

"I want to see." He insisted. "I can fix it."

At least, he figured he knew enough to where it wouldn't be a waste of time to at least go out there and look at it. To try.

The woman narrowed her eyes dismissively and sat down on the torn up sofa by the broken window.

"He's being serious." Rowan said. "But if you know how to, then go do it yourself."

Jane considered it for a minute before finally saying, "Fine. I'll take you. But we should go now or we won't be back before it gets dark."

Arvo nodded at Rowan. "Come on."

Rowan only gestured towards Clementine and AJ, and said uncertainly, "We can't leave them here alone."

"I've been on my own before." Clementine said.

"With a baby?" Rowan countered.

"Stay with them, then." Jane told her, before turning back to him. "Let's go."

Arvo stood there as if he were frozen, but Rowan was staring at him with pleading eyes, and he swallowed his bitterness. She was right. They shouldn't leave a baby all alone with a little girl, if they didn't have to. He didn't want to go anywhere alone with the woman, she'd probably snap his neck if she wanted, but the quicker they had a working vehicle, the better off they'd all be.

* * *

Maybe she regretted staying behind and letting Arvo go with Jane alone. She couldn't tell yet. Knowing what she knew about Jane, it felt wrong, but it felt worse to leave a child and baby all alone, even though there was likely not much she could do to help either of them if something serious were to happen. Jane wouldn't purposely kill Arvo, but she wouldn't help him if he got into trouble either. She wasn't the type, she had proved that fact almost constantly for as long as Rowan had known her, which wasn't very long.

Rowan knew that she thought very little of him, she had even said so.  _Why?_  Because he had a bad leg? Because he was distraught over Natasha dying? Probably the second one. Or both. Either way, it felt evil in an almost alien way to her, to disregard a person because of those things. She couldn't imagine it. However, she did imagine being in that position herself, and watching everyone abandon her because of one excuse or another-in fact she had thought about it happening to her so often that she knew she never wanted to do something so horrible to anyone else.

Rowan leaned back into the ruined couch Jane had been sitting on an hour before and came to the conclusion that her life was just one constant state of regret and apprehension, and there was no decision she could make that would ever leave her content. If she had went with Arvo just to make sure that Jane wouldn't feed him to a bear if it'd give her a head start at running away, the guilt of leaving two kids alone in an abandoned building would have gnawed at her, so she stayed, and now worried if he'd come back alive.

Rowan buried her fingers deeper into the fabric of the sofa, a bit unnerved at how it reminded her of years past once she closed her eyes. It wasn't the type of nostalgia that was strong enough to bring back distinct memories, but the kind that reminded her of something and just left her unsatisfied that she couldn't place the exact feeling. She might as well just keep her eyes open.

The time she had spent contemplating was time she hadn't spent actually watching Clementine and AJ. Clementine was sitting behind the lobby in one of the rolling chairs, it squeaked as she shifted back and forth. AJ was tucked in a blanket sleeping, in a cardboard box that she supposed was meant to be a makeshift crib.

Rowan wondered if Clementine felt the same way she did, even though she was much younger. She watched as Clementine's gaze would always wander back to the sleeping baby and realized that she had her answer. She didn't want to abandon a baby to die either, and Rowan knew that the girl had to have been the one to convince Jane to not do so. It felt strange to witness the same rope of responsibility wound around someone much younger. But then, she wasn't so old herself, and imagined what an adult would think if they had seen her sitting there, watching the two kids.

* * *

The first thing he realized when walking alone with Jane was that it was much easier for him to ignore that this was the same woman who had robbed him and threatened to murder him for no reason, the one who had inadvertently orchestrated his sister's death when they were not the only two sharing a space. But now, he was with her and only her, and found that these things were all he could think about. They invaded his thoughts with every step he took. Arvo stayed quiet because the thought of having to talk to her infuriated him, so he made a point of saying nothing. If he tried, he'd just shout at her, or worse-cry, and he had gone through enough humiliation in these few short weeks, more than he ever had in all his other years combined.

Much to his chagrin, she did not seem to share his feelings. At first, they had walked side by side down the street without saying a single word to one another, and he would have been fine if things had progressed like that for the rest of their trip. Both kept an eye out for walkers, though Arvo was acutely aware that his gun was devoid of bullets, and he couldn't do anything to change that on his own unless a pile of ammo materialized right in front of him. Arvo had to rely on her to protect him.  _I might as well already be dead._  He still had the screwdriver in his pocket, so at least he wasn't completely defenseless.

He was wary about setting off any other traps. Death could be anywhere, made out of anything-and it left him feeling hunted. Like a spear could shoot through his ribs at any minute, though that manifest of his fear felt like something out of a bad movie. Their surroundings were even quieter than they were. Though neither of them were speaking, the sound of snow crunching under their feet and the aggravatingly consistent whine of his brace served as a very resounding substitute.

"So..." Jane spoke, trailing off as if she were expecting him to respond.

Arvo was pleased with himself for not doing so.

"I'm not an idiot. I know you don't like me, but this will probably go smoother if you at least try to communicate with me."

He held his silence.

"Okay, I'll start. My name is Jane, in case you didn't catch that the first few times." She said awkwardly. It felt like she didn't even know how to speak to him when she wasn't waving a gun in his face.

"I have nothing to say to you." He said venomously.

Jane was visibly taken aback by the emotion in his voice, but recovered so quickly that the look on her face faded as quickly as a light did when the switch was flipped to "off".

"Alright."

A few seconds later, she didn't speak again, but instead held out something to him. Arvo didn't look, not out of spite this time, but because he had already resumed searching for danger.

"I don't want to be responsible for your well-being any more than I know I'm already going to have to, so you better just take them." She said, extending her arm even further. "They aren't poisonous."

He looked over to her to see a few rounds in her hand, ones that would fit his revolver. Once he got over his surprise at her offering, he plucked the bullets from her and loaded his weapon. He didn't bother responding to her snide comments, but instead nodded his head in thanks.

"I was tired of watching you walk around pretending that thing was loaded when we both know it isn't."

Arvo noticed frantic dents in the snow, and recognized them as his own footprints. They were on the main road again, the same street he and Rowan had ran down earlier. On second glance, he also saw red flecks of blood in the snow and raised an eyebrow. Neither of them had been bleeding when they had passed through here. The blood of walkers was practically black sludge at this point.  _Where had that come from?_

He felt the sudden urge to ask Jane how close they were to the crash, but he knew he had already burned that bridge. It wasn't worth asking, even though she had given him some sort of peace offering, it'd be pathetic of him to break his resolve now over a simple and pointless question, so he didn't say anything. They'd get there eventually.

* * *

"You killed Kenny, didn't you?" Clementine asked.

Rowan was shocked to hear that kind of question from across the room, as if it were a secret she didn't want getting out. But it wasn't a secret, and it was so quiet inside that it sounded like Clementine was right next to her and not absentmindedly spinning in an office chair a few meters away.

"You...you saw, right?" Rowan replied, the only words she could let out.

Clementine put her head down and shrugged. "I thought Jane would leave without me if I didn't get in the car. I didn't want to be alone out there."

Rowan recognized that loneliness, and wanted to say so, but she had to defend herself first. "He was going to kill me. You heard him, he wanted to kill me." She didn't want someone else mad at her.

"I know. It's weird to think about how I thought he was dead once, and now he really is dead."

"...What do you mean?" Rowan asked, confused.

"A long time ago, he was in the same group I was. Everyone else died, and I thought he did too. But he made it, somehow. It just feels like he died a second time."

"Was he your friend?"

"Not...not really?" She said, as if realizing it for the first time. "He scared me sometimes, back then. And he scares me even more now. It just feels...really weird, that he's gone." Clementine said slowly, having trouble processing her thoughts. "It feels weird...because he's the last one I knew from when all this started."

"I didn't want to do it." Rowan said. "Honestly, I didn't. I've never killed a living person before." She had killed countless walkers, but it never felt like killing people. She had seen them die already, it was laying a moving corpse to rest.

"I have." Clementine said softly.

Her eyes widened, wanting to ask her why she did it. Didn't she have someone older watching her, helping her? She must have had someone.

"I did it for my friend." Clementine continued. "He was too weak, he had been through too much and couldn't do it, and that man was going to kill him if I didn't." Clementine swallowed, her voice trembling a little before she repeated, "I did it for my friend."

"Me too."

* * *

"There." Jane pointed at the truck.

It didn't look as bad as he thought it would. Arvo had half expected the vehicle to have been blown to bits with the way she had talked about it. It had crashed into the streetlight for sure, and upon closer inspection he saw that the front tires had been utterly shredded. He walked up to the hood of the car and opened it.  _The battery must be dead by now._

"So, can you fix it?" She asked.

"I don't know. I'm not an…" He couldn't think of the word. "I'm not the best at this, but it probably needs...new battery, and...tires." Arvo pointed at the clawed up tire rubber littering the ground beside the truck.

"Obviously."

"It cannot be fixed in one day. Need to get the parts first."  _And I don't know where to do that._  Arvo checked a few more things, observing the vehicle to make sure there wasn't anything else wrong with it. He found that as he became more absorbed in his observations, he naturally assumed Jane would keep an eye on things while he was occupied. Out here, her life was on the line too, and he knew that she'd at least fight hard to preserve herself. He could benefit from her watchful eyes.

"Did you get what you wanted?" She asked after a few minutes had passed.

"Yes."

* * *

"He probably needs something better than a box." Rowan commented cautiously, peering down at AJ who was now in Clementine's arms.

The girl shrugged in response. "I don't know. I don't think one blanket will be enough to keep him warm...We found cans of baby formula in suitcases up in one of the rooms. Jane has been trying to break into all of them, we found the key for the one with the formula. Some have locks that can be picked, but most don't and some are barricaded up."

Rowan unzipped her backpack and pulled out Arvo's now empty and folded up bag. Most of the contents were vitamins and over the counter painkillers, some were prescriptions, she had no idea what for-but she had already emptied them from the bag and relocated them to another section of her pack.

"Maybe we can put him in this?" Rowan offered. "Until we can find something better, I mean."

"Arvo probably wouldn't like that." Clem laughed.

Rowan shrugged. "It'll be better than nothing, like a little bed for him. See if he fits."

She gently lowered him into the sack and smiled when he fit inside easily.

"Hey! Can someone help me?" They heard a voice calling from outside.

Both instantly reached for their guns, unsure of who was out there or why they had come. Rowan froze, but watched as Clementine quickly gathered up AJ in his new bed and quickly moved to the main desk, placing him behind the counter.

"Is anyone in there?"

Rowan paused, waiting for someone to speak up and direct them, and at that moment it dawned on her that she was the closest thing to an adult in the room.  _"Come on"_  She motioned to Clementine, walking towards the door cautiously.

"I'm going to come in." The doorknob turned.

"Don't!" Rowan had yelled, but the hand that was moving the knob had stopped before she had even said a word. Nobody had come through.

She wasn't going to be the first one to go through the door. Rowan figured both of them would be safer inside, and instead crept towards the window, knowing she'd be able to see the stranger at an angle, just like Jane and Clementine probably had when she and Arvo were walking up to the motel.

Her eyes widened once she saw who it was. The girl she had met in the woods days or weeks ago, however long it had been, was standing outside.

How did she find them? What did she want? Rowan backed away from the window before the girl could turn towards it and see her, and aiming her gun, finally told her to come inside.

The doorknob completed a full turn and the girl came through with a heavy limp, though Rowan didn't notice any wound on her. She was clutching her side tightly, Rowan then saw the bright red smears through the creases in her fingers. Her breath caught in her throat and she looked away quickly.

The other girl looked even more surprised to see Rowan, but repeated, weaker this time, "I need help."

**Author's Note:**

> It isn't exactly quality writing, but I tried. Oh, and quick note, when in Arvo's POV when he starts speaking Russian it is italicized.


End file.
